Cardcaptor Raithe
by croenix fire
Summary: I'm really bad at summeries, so basically there's a new cardcaptor named Raithe.story better than the very vague summery. Rated for some language, might become worse as story progresses.
1. Prologue

Disclaimer: I do not own the TV series 'Cardcaptor Sakura' or any of the original characters, this laptop, Microsoft word, or anything related to this story other than my own original characters.

Prologue

Raithe gazed out the window as the airplane landed. After several moments, he sighed as everyone around him began to get up. He grabbed his back pack that was in the seat next him and the duffle bag on the rack above him. He quickly exited the plane and found him self in the airport lobby. He glanced around, then his eyes fell onto his father; his expression was cold as he stared back at him. Raithe sighed.

**RAITHE'S POV**

Hi, you might be wondering who I am, but then again you may be like most everyone else and you don't care, but whether you care or not, I'm going to introduce myself anyways.

My name is Raithe Imahara, I'm 15 years old, and I have never had a girlfriend in my entire life. I'm basically just considered a loser who can't do anything except play the piano. I suck at any type of school, physical activity, or anything that is considered 'useful,' especially in the eyes of my father and my school mates.

Last year, my parents sent me to America in hopes that it would improve my academics, though I'm sorry to say, I don't feel it did very much and so as usual, my parents will be disappointed in me, though my mom is usually pretty nice about it. When I get my report cards back, she just kinda sighs, smiles, and says 'you'll do better next time, just make sure you study harder.' Then my dad always says, 'Megumi, you're far to soft on him, that's what you should be saying when he gets a B, which he clearly does not have.' And then he starts ranting, wondering why I can't do any better.

**NORMAL**

Raithe's father walked over to him. "Why are you just standing there? I have a lot of work to at the store, and I don't have time to wait while you stand here thinking whatever it is that you're thinking." With that he turned around and walked to the exit.

Raithe sighed. "Gee, dad, it sure is swell to see you to, considering I haven't seen you in a whole year." Raithe then followed him. He soon found the small black car, put his bags in the trunk, and got into the passenger seat. Wordlessly, his father started the car.

**RAITHE'S POV**

Yep, this is my dad, Fujiwara Imahara, owner of the Imahara fish store, which also happens to be our house, so you can only imagine how many air fresheners we need, though they don't really seem to help much.

I, unfortunately, have to assist in the store, but worst then being forever smelling faintly of fish, I only get paid in coupons to by gum. But not just any gum, THE worst tasting gum on the planet.

Yes, I'm a complainer. My friends, no sorry, friend always complains about me complaining, and saying stuff like, 'you'll never get a girlfriend in you complain about every little thing that exists on the planet.' And I reply, 'I do not complain about everything that exists on the planet, only everything that is related to my life.' And then he says, 'Dude, you are so emo,' and I say 'Pinky you,' as he hold up my pinky to him… yah, don't ask.

While I dread returning home to my fish smelling house with a pantry sized bed room with only a crappy keyboard that is out of tune and almost out of batteries, I dreaded having to go to school the next day, to high school.

I have this feeling that last year, while I was gone, my friend- his name is Lenny Suzuki by the way, half Italian, half Japanese- went around telling everyone that I went to America, and when I came back, I was going to be a super genius/ super athlete… well, I'm not.

**NORMAL**

The car slowly pulled up in front of a small house with an open front door and some buckets with crabs and clams in ice outside. Raithe opened his door as his dad did the same. He walked right up the three steps and inside without a word. Raithe got his bags from the trunk and walked into the horrid smelling house. Immediately he heard foot steps running down the steps. His mother stopped at the foot of the stairs and gazed at her son. She had long black hair and blue eyes. She wore a simple dress with a cream colored apron.

"Hey mom," He said as he smiled, dropping his bags as his mother raced over and tightly embraced him.

"Welcome home sweetie," She said she smiled at him. "You have no idea how lonely it was without you here for a whole year, you know you really should've written and called more, it's been so quiet, though Lenny came over quite frequently to keep me company, so tell him I said thank you a thousand time to him when you see him."

Raithe nodded. "I'll do that,"

"Now, what would you like for dinner? I'll make you anything you want in celebration of your returning,"

His father then poked his head around the door frame that ked to the kitchen. "He doesn't need a feast Megumi. Now it'd be one thing if he actually accomplished something," his eyes narrowed even more. "Though for some reason I have the feeling his mind hasn't improved one little bit." Megumi gritted her teeth.

"Fujiwara, have some faith in your son, I'm sure he has improved greatly, but even if he hasn't, he still deserves a nice welcome home dinner!" She snapped back, but Fujiwara had already returned to the kitchen. Megumi sighed as she covered her eyes.

"Don't worry about it mom, I'm not that hungry anyways, I filled up on airport food before the plane left."

"Are you sure,"

"Yah, I'm just gonna take my bags up to my room," He then picked up his bags and went up the stairs. He went down the narrow hallway all the way to the door at the end. He opened it and entered his room white stucco walls, a white stucco ceiling, and a hardwood floor.

There were two small windows on the opposite of him, a mattress in the corner of the room with several pipes above it. Next to the mattress, between the two windows, was a small table with a lamp on it. On the wall opposite of the bed was a dresser and a mirror. Sitting on the floor at the end of the mattress was a small keyboard. Next to him was a small closet. Raithe tossed his bags on the dusty wood floor and collapsed onto his mattress and gazed at the ceiling. He then sat up and walked over to the dresser, gazing into the mirror.

His ice blue eyes stared back at him. He had jet black hair that was slightly spiky in places and looked as though it hadn't been combed in several days. Amongst the back mess of hair were electric blue high lights. He was wearing a pair of dark faded jeans with a giant hole in the right knee and black t-shirt with a skull and cross bone on it. Raithe then went back to his bed and sat on it.

**RAITHE'S POV**

Yup, this is my room. Small, ugly, fiercely hot in the summers and unbearably cold in the winter, and it smells really bad.

**NORMAL**

Suddenly one of the pipes above his mattress fell onto his pillow a few inches away from him.

**RAITHE'S POV**

Oh yah, and that pipe keeps falling out, usually when I'm sleeping. I'm just glad that nothing runs through that pipe like water or something worse. So yah, this is basically my life, I'm a nerd who obsesses over the piano with no life at all, not sure if there's much more to tell you. My life is relatively boring, nothing happens, except when I'm hanging out with Lenny and he gets one of his 'ingenious' ideas for some type of adventure, but then I usually end up being grounded or sitting on a cold stone bench with metal bars in front of me, then I get kicked out the house for a few nights, although that was all going to change soon. Although I didn't know it at the time, my life was going to completely be turned upside down by the least thing I ever expected to obtain, a strange book with a lock that only I can open.


	2. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

_A book with some sort of beast's head with wings on the cover of it opened. Raithe stood on a building as he wore a black sleeveless shirt and long black gloves that went up past his elbows. Around his neck was a long scarf and many belts around his black pants. A pink staff was in his hand as cards fells all around him, floating next to him a small yellow creature with wings. Suddenly he began to fall forward off of the building._

Raithe opened his eyes the next morning to the feeling of something heavy hitting him on the head. He groaned as he sat up, rubbing his head. He picked up the small metal pipe and placed it back above his head between the two pipes that were supposedly supposed to be keeping it there. He looked at his clock with sleepy eyes for a moment, and then suddenly became wide awake.

"What the frick?!" He exclaimed as he jumped. "Crap, it's eight o'clock," He raced to his closet and thrust the sliding doors open, to find that it was empty. "Mooooooooooooooom," he cried as he ran down the steps and stopped halfway. "My new uniform, where,"

"Oh yes, that's right, I forgot to give it to you." She slowly put down her book that she had been reading at the counter by the cash register and walked calmly to the kitchen. Raithe tapped his foot impatiently as she returned and handed him a pile of clothes. Raithe ran back up the steps, slammed him door shut and threw off his white t-shirt. He then picked up a white short sleeved blouse and pulled it on, quickly buttoning it up, leaving the top two buttons unbuttoned.

He ran down stairs a moment later wearing navy plaid pants and dark green jacket that hung open over his white shirt and black tie loosely tied around his neck.

"By mom," He said as he grabbed an apple and ran out the door. Sitting by the front steps was a skateboard. Raithe grabbed it and jumped onto it, propelling himself down the street with his right foot.

**RAITHE'S POV**

Now, I know I said I sucked at sports, so then maybe you're wondering 'why the heck is he riding a skateboard?' Well, the answer is quite simple: I suck at sports or anything involving physical activity, so instead of giving myself a seizure walking five miles to school, I ride a skateboard which requires nothing but my foot.

**NORMAL**

Raithe rode swiftly down a small hill as he had both feet of the board. His hair flew everywhere as the wind blew. He glanced down at his green jacket and navy plaid pants and raised an eyebrow. He then looked back in front of him.

_I look gay in these pants,_ He thought to himself. _And I don't mean the happy way._

He wasn't going particularly fast, but things still looked blurry as he sped fast, despite this, something, or someone stuck out at him. As he passed, everything suddenly seemed to slow down as he was gazing into a pair of big brown eyes accented by long, dark red hair. He whizzed passed, still looking back.

_Was that… Sara?_ Suddenly his body hit something hard as his feet were no longer on the bored. He slowly slid off the pole and onto the ground. "Ow," he muttered.

XXXXXXX

Sara gazed ahead of her, her brown eyes curious. Suddenly someone put their arm around her. Sara looked back and saw deep blue eyes gazing down into her brown ones.

"H- Haku," She said. He had light reddish brown hair that was blowing lightly in the wind. He was tall, slender, and muscular. Sara could feel her facing turning red as he smiled at her.

"You know, you shouldn't just stop walking in the middle of the road," He said to her in his smooth, clear voice. Sara nodded as he led her over to the side walk. "So what's up, you look as though you have something on your mind."

"I," Sara began. "I thought I saw… Raithe," Haku suddenly stopped walking as he looked at her.

"You mean Imahara?" He asked his voice now cold, his eyes narrow.

"Um, yah, though I could be totally wrong, it probably wasn't him," She said quickly as they began walking again, only Haku's expression didn't change back to it's normal friendly self as she had hopped. Sara sighed.

_I wonder if it really was Raithe, _She thought to herself. _He's been gone for so long. I wonder what he'll think of me when he sees me. _Her eyes became downcast as she pressed her lips together.

XXXXXXX

Raithe stared at the large white building. It was certainly much large then the schools in America.

"So this is Miharu high, huh?" He muttered to himself as he watched students going in and out of the building. All the guys wore uniforms identical to his, and the girls had skirts, all varying in length, that were a dark plaid green with a navy jacket. Most girls wore short pleated skirts with white socks up to their knees, other had knee length skirts with socks that either went to their knees, or halfway to the knee, and then a few had long skirts down to their ankles.

Raithe climbed up the white steps towards the big brown doors. Several cherry blossom trees were around the property. It truly was a beautiful building, sorta reminded him of all the big churches in the States. A smile crossed his lips as he remembered how happy he had been when he went into the sanctuary of one of them. All the way at the back was an enormous pipe organ, his teacher had gotten special permission for him to play it.

He found his small locker in the first room and took off his shoes, replacing them with his inside sneakers that his mother had bought for him a few days ago. He then placed his normal shoes in his locker. Suddenly he felt a chill run down his spine. He glanced around. Seeing nothing that seemed threatening to his well being, he closed the locker door. Then, out no where, he heard it:

"Raaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiittttttttttttttttthhhhhhheeeeeeee kuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuunnnnn!!!!!!!!!"

Someone suddenly leaped towards him and wrapped their arms around his neck.

"Ack!" Raithe exclaimed, nearly falling backwards, though somehow managed to regain his balance. "Who the- " He stopped when he saw the mess of light brown hair in front of him.

"Oh my beloved, you don't know how delighted I am to see you" Their grip tightened as their head rested on Raithe's shoulder. "I have missed you so deeply." Raithe's eye twitched as passing girls giggled.

"Get the HELL off me, Lenny!" He exclaimed. The boy leaned back, his arms still around his neck though. Lenny's big green eyes sparkled as he gazed into Raithe's twitching blue ones.

"Now, now, is that any way to great your old buddy?" He asked as he smiled.

"What are you talking about, you're the one who leapt through the air and nearly strangled me." Lenny gasped dramatically as he placed his hands over his mouth.

"Oh no, no, no, you misunderstand, I was greeting you with an embrace,"

"You don't say," Raithe replied, his eyes small dots. Lenny then took Raithe's hands in his own as his eyes became tearful.

"You, you don't know how much I have missed you. For the past year, I've been completely alone, no one here to comfort me in my times of woe,"

"And no one's still here to comfort you in your times of woe,"

"You're so cruel," Lenny said as he looked away for a moment, and then back again. "But still, I have to say it; I've wanted to say it for so long now,"

"Oh gosh, please shut up," Raithe closed his eyes.

"Raithe Imahara, I… I," Anger points began to pop up all over Raithe's head as girls giggled uncontrollably near them.

"Lenny, people are staring," Raithe said, trying to remain calm.

Lenny crossed his arms and closed his eyes,

"Geez, you are no fun at all. Here I thought that going to America would give you a sense of humor, but nooooooooooo, you're just as boring as ever."

"At least I don't act like a gay retard,"

"Ah, touché," The boy replied as he opened one of his eyes. The two stared at each other for a moment, and then Raithe reluctantly smiled.

"I must admit though, despite your dramatic acts, I have missed you." Lenny's eyes became sparkly.

"You did? I mean, really missed me?" Raithe nodded as he scratched the back of his head.

**RAITHE'S POV**

Meet my best friend since kindergarten, Lenny Suzuki. He's a few months older than me (will be 16 in two months) and basically the complete opposite of me. He's an artist of…well, art, while I'm an artist of music. Oh yah, and he's filthy rich, but he doesn't act like it. I had known him for several years before I actually went to his house for the first time, and when the security guard at the front told me that 'Master Suzuki' did live there, I literally fainted. His mom is the CEO of some big fashion company, they live in a flippin' huge mansion, and have like, twenty cars, and yet he still hangs out with a looser like me. Oh yah, one more thing; Lenny's only his nickname, unfortunately I've been sworn to secrecy about his real name.

**NORMAL**

"Can you believe, we're in high school," Lenny shrieked.

"Assuming we pass the entrance exams today." Raithe stated bluntly. Lenny glared at him.

"You, you… you bubble burster," Lenny snapped back. "Let me have my dreams." Raithe rolled his eyes, though slightly smiling.

_You haven't changed at all._ "But you are aware that even if you fail, your mom can just pay-" Lenny quickly placed both his hands over the black haired boys mouth with a stern look on his face as he glanced around.

"Not so loud," He whispered. He back away from his friend. "I'm starting a new life at high school, absolutely no one is going to know that I'm… er, not poor. Last year some people found out."

"So?" Raithe asked, raising an eyebrow. "I would think you'd want people to know, you'd have girls begging to go out with you." Lenny scratched his head.

"Yah, well… being popular and girls begging to go out with you… it seems kinda boring to me. I like getting girls to be a challenge, and if I became 'popular' (what is popular when you really think about it?) I'd probably drift away from you," His face became downcast.

"Lenny- kun," Raithe whispered. _You really are a good friend._

"Kinda like what Sara- chan did."

"Yah… wait, what?"

"Oh yah, I forgot to tell you,"

"Raithe- kun!" A voice suddenly called out. Raithe turned around and saw a girl with sparkling brown eyes and long red straight hair.

"S- Sara- chan," He stuttered, he could tell his face was reddening. The girl ran over to him and wrapped her arms around his neck as she hugged him.

"I've missed you," She said warmly as she backed away.

"Y- yah, I've missed you too." Raithe breathed as he looked her up and down. "You- you got your braces off." He stated Sara smiled.

"Yah, got 'em off right after you left, notice anything else?"

Raithe ran his fingers through her hair. "Your hair is straight, and you're not wearing your glasses." The girl giggled.

"I got contacts silly. After I got rid of my braces, I figured, why stop there? So I convinced my mom to let me get contacts, and I started straightening my hair."

**RAITHE'S POV**

This is Sara Hisashi; I've known her since third grade. When I met her, she was a nerd. If you looked up the word nerd in the dictionary, you'd see a picture of her. Freckles, huge glasses, braces, puffy, wavy hair, obsessed over math. She was made fun of a lot when she was younger, as did Lenny and I, and yet for some reason I was attracted to her. I fell in love with her the first time I saw her, not because of her looks, but her personality: it was cute, perky, funny, and many other things. She had been tutoring me in math, but I guess it didn't help much.

**NORMAL**

She leaned in close to him and put her hand to the side of her mouth. "I'm so excited, last year there was a rumor that Haku Wanderheim (His name is German so it's pronounced 'Van- der- hime) is going to ask me out!" She whispered.

Raithe blinked as the image of the man filled his mind. Light brownish red hair, blue eyes, and was very athletic.

"Ah, speak of the devil, here he is." Lenny said rather loudly. A shiver shot down Raithe's spine as Haku's cold dark blue eyes glared at his own ice blue ones. He walked over to them, ignoring all the girls around him.

"Well, well, well, if it isn't Imahara. Sara was right, she did see you, and you're just as nauseating to look at as ever." He smirked.

**RAITHE'S POV**

Haku Wanderheim, known him since first grade, and he's been bullying Lenny and I since then, and once we met Sara, she became one of his regular ridicule targets. He's an amazing athlete, but not very bright, probably has a lower IQ than me, if that's possible. He was on the school's baseball team for as long as I can remember. He has a good reputation, so he'll most defiantly get a spot on the high school team this year. What's weird is that he's a complete moron, and yet he's probably going to get a million collage scholarships for sports, unlike me where I'm a complete moron and won't get a single one.

**NORMAL**

"Come on Sara- san," Haku said as he put his arm around the girl. "We'd best get going, no time to waste with these losers, especially not today." With that he walked away, along with twenty or so other girls.

"I don't believe it," Lenny commented. "First day of high school, and he already has upper class fan girls."

"Lenny," Raithe muttered. His friend looked over at him. "What happened to Sara- chan?" Lenny looked down at the floor.

"Isn't it obvious," He said, half heartedly laughing. "She changed."

"But,"

"I haven't hung out or really talked to her for a long time." He said, almost whispered. It was completely silent, until the bell rang. "Well, time for class!" Lenny announced, his attitude doing a complete 360 as he gave Raithe a thumbs up.

XXXXXXXX

Raithe sighed as he walked down the near empty halls with his hands in his pockets. "Exams are tough," He sighed. He then pushed open the door to the men's room, and saw someone was inside. _Haku?_ He half closed the door as he peered. It looked as though he was struggling to open something.

The brown haired boy slightly turned, giving Raithe full view of what he was holding. It looked like a journal or something with a lock on the front. Raithe raised his eye. _He's trying to open a book? What, did he lose the key or something?_

"Hey!" Haku exclaimed. "What are you doing hiding there?"

"H- hiding? I don't know-" Haku grabbed the collar of his shirt and pulled him close.

"Why were you spying on me?" He asked. Raithe's eyes glanced down at the book. Haku followed his gazed and growled. He stretched out his arm, preparing to toss the black haired boy across the room, when the door suddenly opened.

A tall, slender man with long silver hair pulled back in a thin pony tail and light brown eyes was standing in the door way. Raithe thought he didn't look old, but then again, he had silver hair. "What's going on?" He asked sternly. Haku stared at him as Raithe dangled in the air. The man sighed. "Put the boy down," he said.

Haku released his grip and Raithe crashed down onto the floor. Raithe stood up, rubbing his lower back.

"Don't you guys have a math exam?" The man inquired, raising an eyebrow. Haku and Raithe glared at each other. The two then walked down the hall to the math room. Raithe slid open the sliding door. Lenny was in the center row near the back and looked up at him and then motioned for him to sit in the seat next to him, which was by the window.

_That book… it looked just like the one I saw in my dream._ He thought as he sat down. Haku was sitting near Sara. Raithe gazed out the window, his chin resting on the palm of his hand, as he waited for the teacher to arrive. _And who was that in bathroom?_

"Welcome class to the math exam." A voice said. Raithe blinked as he looked up and saw the silver haired man.

"Wait, you're the math teacher?" Haku asked.

"Why yes," He replied. "And the music teacher," He added, looking directly at Raithe. Raithe stared back at him, and then looked back out the window. Raithe had been hoping to take the advanced music class, but his dad wouldn't allow it until he knew that Raithe was getting good grades in all his other classes.

"My name is Kaito Yu," He said as he wrote his name on the board. He then picked up a stack of papers and handed a page to everyone. "You may begin you exam."

Raithe stretched his arms and closed his eyes as he walked outside. The cool spring air blue his dark black hair with electric blue high lights. He then opened his eyes as his arms dropped by his side. _Well, I made it through the exams, if I did as well as I thought I did, I should get in. _

"Raithe- kun!" Lenny exclaimed as he ran over to him. "You're coming to my house, I'll ask Sanobe- san to make us some smoothies." He said with a wink.

"Can't," Raithe replied in a monotone. "I promised my parents I'd help in the store today." Lenny sighed.

"Fine, just make sure you take tomorrow off," Lenny replied as he walked over to where his bike was. "Ja ne!" He said as he saluted Raithe with his pointer and index finger, he then peddled down the street.

People were walking all around him, but the only person he saw was Sara, getting into a shiny red sports call with Haku. She was laughing as he closed the door. As Haku then swiftly turned to go over to the driver's side, something fell from his backpack. He got into the car and drove away.

Curious, Raithe walked over to the sidewalk and found himself looking down at a pink and gold book with a beast's face on it and wings. The word 'SAKURA' was at the type in English letters. Raithe picked it up and flipped it over. It was locked. He'd give it to Sara to give to Haku tomorrow. He then put it in his own back pack, grabbed his skate board, and began his long trek home.

Raithe collapsed onto his bed with a sigh. "What an exhausting day," He muttered. He then sat up, remembering the book. He pulled it out of his back pack and looked at it. "I wonder how I can open this," He muttered, when all of a sudden, the strap that locked the book clicked open. Raithe blinked. "Ok…" Well, since it was open, he might as well look inside.

Raithe flipped back the cover. Inside was a type of whole filled with what looked like pink cards with some sort of array on the back. He picked up the first one and looked at it. On the card was a woman with wings around the front of her body and long hair. Below the picture it read 'THE WINDY' and below it said SAKURA, all in English. For the first time he was glad he learned English.

Raithe raised his eyebrow. "The windy?" Immediately a huge gust of wind formed in the room. "What the-" The wind speed increased, suddenly all the cards in the book were swirling around him, and then shot out of his open window as the wind died down and the book fell to the floor.

Raithe stared blankly at the card in his hand as his hair was more disheveled than usual. "That was unexpected," He said hoarsely. His eye then glanced down at the book, it was glowing and something was coming out of it. Raithe scooted back on his bed, his eyes wide.

The thing rose into the air, it was a small yellow creature with small white wings. Suddenly it opened its eyes. "Hey there, Sakura!"

_Next time: Ok, a talking plushy just came out of a book and starts telling me that I'm some sort of 'cardcaptor,' what the heck is that about? Well, I have no idea, but I'm hoping that this is just some sort of nightmare. _

Authoress' note: Ok, there you go. Please review, no harsh flames. I'm researching Japanese traditions and such as I write, so sorry if some things are messed up. I will not update until I have at least 2 reviews.


	3. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

_The thing rose into the air, it was a small yellow creature with small white wings. Suddenly it opened its eyes. "Hey there, Sakura!" _

The creature stared at the teen with a confused look. He floated closer as Raithe scooted back. "Wait a minuet," The creature said in a high pitched voice. "You're not Sakura," Raithe could feel his draw dropping as the tallow creature looked him over. He stared at the creature as it stared back at him.

"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh" Raithe yelled.

"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!" The

creature screamed.

"Ah!"

"Ah!"

"Ah!"

Raithe jumped to the corner of his bed and grabbed the loose pipe and pulled it, ready to swing at the monster. He pulled, but it didn't budge. He pulled again, harder; still it didn't move. "Gah!" He exclaimed as he pulled at it. "Why. Won't. you. Move?!" He shook the structure of pipes violently. "You stupid pipe! You always fall out when I'm sleeping, so why won't you budge when I actually want you to!!"

He glanced back and saw the creature now coming towards him. "Gah, stay back!" He exclaimed.

"Who are you, and why have you summoned me?" The creature exclaimed. Raithe stepped back and slipped on the sheets and slammed into the corner, when the pipe suddenly fell on his head.

"Oh, so now you fall!" He shouted at the wall as he rubbed his head.

"Excuse me,"

"Ack!" Raithe held out the small pipe in front of himself.

"Hey, watch it; you could really hurt someone with that. Now just answer my question, who are you?" The small creature asked again.

"Who am I?" Raithe repeated. "Who, or what in hell are you?!" It looked as though the creature had actually smiled.

"I am Kerberos, the beast of the seal who guards this book." It explained. Raithe blinked.

"Seal…? Kerberos…?" A question mark appeared over his head. He cringed, his eye twitching as the thing landed on his bed and began to walk towards him.

**RAITHE'S POV**

This was too weird, too weird to be happening; it must be dream. I decided.

"Yah," It said, the book on the floor suddenly stood upright. "Looking out for the cards in this book so that they don't do anything bad is my…" It looked at the open (and empty) book, back, and then froze. It looked back and had some sort of spazz attack; I'm guessing the cards weren't supposed to fly away like that.

"The cards are gone!" It exclaimed. "Why, why!? Where did they go?"

"Uh," I said slowly. "You mean this?" I handed him the card.

"Yes, this," It took the card from me. "Where are the others?" I then pointed to my open window. The creature stared at the window, then back at me.

"See, I read WINDY,"

"Oh no, not again," It muttered. "Let me guess: there was a huge gust of wind," I nodded. "And they all blew away, right?"

"Was… that bad?" I asked.

"Was that bad?" The crea- I mean Kerberos repeated. "Was that bad?" It seemed to calm for my liking. It muttered under its breath, nodding its head, and then looked up at me again, smiling; it freaked me out…a lot. "Baka!!!!!!!" It suddenly exclaimed.

"Raithe!" My father suddenly called from downstairs. "What's with all that screaming?"

"Uh, nothing!" I replied. Yes, absolutely nothing, only some magical spell blew away all these cards, and then a floating plush toy rises from the book, and states that it's 'Kerberos, the guardian of the seal or whatever. Yes, all perfectly normal occurrences.

"Your… name is Raithe?" It asked. I nodded. "Ok, so…why did you summon me, and where's Sakura- chan?"

"Who?"

"Sakura… she's the Cardcaptor…"

"The what?" I asked.

We both stared at each other. "If you don't know Sakura- chan, or anything about this book, where did you get it?" It asked.

"Um, some guy at school dropped it, and I picked it up so I could give it to him tomorrow," I explained.

"Then how were you able to open the lock, only someone with magical powers can do that," It muttered. "Are you sure you don't know Sakura, maybe you're related to her or something," I got up, opened my door, and called down.

"Hey mom!" I hollered.

"Nani?"

"Are we related to someone named Sakura?"

There was a pause. "Not that I'm aware of, why?"

"Just wondering." And with that I closed the door and went back and sat down on my bed. "There you have it." He said. Kerberos stared at me.

"You're a weird kid," It said. It then turned around and began to float in the air as it glowed.

"What are you…"

"Shh! I'm trying to locate the Sakura cards." It snapped back. I leaned back on my wall, watching the small creature. Neither of us spoke or moved for several minuets, and then it let out a sigh as it fell back to my bed. "It's no use," It said. "I can't find them anywhere."

"So… what are these 'Sakura cards'?" I asked.

"Sakura cards: They were originally called CLOW cards-"

"So then why are they now SAKURA cards?"

"Silence baka! I'm getting to that. Any ways, when the seal is broken on those cards a catastrophe will befall the world."

"Then why were they created?" Kerberos glared at me. "Gomen, gomen,"

"The cards were special, made by the amazing sorcerer Clow Reed. Each card is alive and possesses incredible powers, but they all like acting on their own and normal forces are no match for them. So Clow created the book and made me the beast of the seal, on the books front cover." I blinked… many times. "So then later, a girl named Sakura Kinomoto found the book, and she did the same thing you did, read WINDY and away the cards flew(next time we really need to put a different card on top) She then went and collected all the cards, once that happened, she was then able to transform the cards, into SAKURA cards."

"A little girl huh? Well that explains why they're pink."

This was, by far, the strangest story I had ever heard, and I've heard some pretty strange stories before. "In any case," It continued. "We have to get those cards back." It then glared at me. "So you're coming with me."

"Nani? Why me?" I asked.

"Well aren't YOU the one who read WINDY spell?" 

"Well, yah but,"

"No excuses! I don't know where Sakura is, or where that kid you stole the book from got it-"

"I didn't steal it!"

"Yah, yah whatever. Anyways, It's your fault, so your responsibility to fix it."

"Aren't you the one who was supposed to be guarding the cards in the first place?"

"Yah, well, I fell asleep… again."

:Asleep?! And you're lectured me about responsibility, you hypocrite."

"Hey, that is no way to speak to your elders!"

"Elders? You're a plush toy, how old could you possibly be?"

"A lot older than you, kid!" I was about to reply when he jumped up. "Anyways! Since you opened this book, it obviously means you have some form of magical power."

"Magic? But magic isn't real."

"Isn't real? Have you not been paying attention to anything that's just happened, anything I've told you?"

"Not really," I replied. It fell over.

"Baka," I muttered. "What was your name again?" It asked.

"Raithe,"

"Alright Raithe, go stand over there," I got up off my mattress and walked a foot away from it. Suddenly, Kerberos began to glow.

The room faded away as a golden array appeared under me.

"Key of the seal," Kerberos began. A small sphere rose out of the lock from the book. "There is someone wishing for a contract with you." It said as the sphere floated over to me. "A boy, his name is Raithe. Oh key, grant him the power! Release!"

The sphere exploded, I shielded my eyes from the light. "Raithe, grab the staff!" Kerberos exclaimed. I squinted; I could barely see a thin item a few feet away from me. I extended my hand and grabbed it; the light flowed into the staff.

"Alright," Kerberos exclaimed. "It's the birth of a new Cardcaptor."

I could now see that I was holding a short pink staff with a star at the top. It was disgusting and girly, there was now way I was doing this. The array suddenly disappeared as my room went back to normal.

"What's wrong?" It asked. I looked at him.

"Look at me, what does my appearance tell you?"

"You are a grumpy, grumpy, person." It said.

"Ok, and what am I holding?"

"Ah, the star staff," It replied.

"What color is it?"

"Pink,"

"Ok, now what gender am I, and what color do you think I'd like?"

"You're a boy, and I'm guessing black is your color." It replied.

"Very good, so what's wrong with this picture?" Kerberos stared at me for a moment, and then erupted into laughter.

"You look so ridiculous!" I exclaimed.

"Some one please shoot me." I muttered.

"No way," I said. "There is no way I'm going around the city with a girly little staff and capturing magical cards." I was sitting on my bed, wearing my black pajama pants, and because I was manly, I obviously didn't wear a shirt. I looked in the mirror; Manly my foot. Absolutely no muscles, none whatsoever,

"Why not?" Kerberos asked.

"I'm a fifteen year old guy! What if someone from school sees me, like Haku or… or Sara." Before I knew what had happened, the yellow creature was in my face.

"Ooooh, who's Sara?" It asked.

"None of your business," I said, turning away quickly. Suddenly a shiver shot down through my spine. I looked around.

"What's wrong?" Kerberos asked me.

"I… don't know." I replied.

"Ah- ha!" The creature exclaimed. "You must've felt a SAKURA card!" Suddenly we felt a small tremor not to far away. "Let's go!" It called.

"N- now?!

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Raithe slammed his foot down on the side walk, stopping his skateboard, scrapping the bottom of his bare foot. "Why couldn't I at least have put on a shirt, and some shoes would be nice." I said.

"Shh," Kerberos hissed as he hovered in front of me. "Raithe, use the incantation, just like I taught you."

I reluctantly pulled out the small necklace and held it in my hand. "Key of the star with powers burning bright reveal the staff and shine your light, Release!" An array with a Star in the middle with the Sun and Moon opposite each other on the sides formed beneath my feet. The necklace then turned into the pink star staff.

"Alright, now what?" I asked impatiently as the wind blew and I shivered. I looked where Kerberos was looking; into a dark ally. I could faintly see something emerging from the darkness. I was relieved when I saw what it was. "It's just a dog,"

"Not just any dog," Kerberos informed me. The creature fully emerged, revealing itself to be a giant dog, at least 15 feet high. My jaw dropped as we stared wide eyed at the dog.

"Why is that dog so big?" I asked as I clutched the staff.

"It's probably the BIG card," Kerberos said. The dog suddenly let out a loud bark as it ran towards us.

"Gah!" I exclaimed as I turned the other way and ran as fast as I could. I glanced back, which was a mistake. Drool was dripping from its mouth as the dark barked, its sharp huge teeth showing ferociously. "Not good, not good, not good, crap!" I exclaimed as I tripped over a rock. I looked up as the dog loomed over me, growling.

"N- nice doggie," I said. The dog's mouth shot down as it went to bite, but something tugged at my hair. "Ow!" I cried as I was dragged into the air.

"Myou're mevy!" Kerberos cried as he was bighting my hair.

On normal circumstances, I would've said something like, 'Great, and I just got a shower too,' but as I looked back and saw the giant dog bite through a telephone pole, I found myself very thankful towards the yellow stuffed animal.

Next thing I knew I was falling, the dog charging towards me. My life flashed before my eyes, when my body suddenly collided with something cold and wet, then hard. I pushed against the fountain floor as water spilled over onto my head.

"Gee, thanks Kerberos," I muttered as I stood up, very wet and cold, my black hair plastered against my face. I stepped out of the fountain and looked around. Kerberos was no where to be seen, nor was the dog, but someone, or something, was there. Sitting on the edge of the other side of the fountain was a blue woman dressed as a medieval princess.

She then touched a fish with her staff, turning it huge. "Um," I said as I walked over to her. She looked at me, and then stood up. I stepped back as I held the staff in front of me.

"Raithe!" I heard Kerberos call. He was flying towards me, and right behind him was the giant dog. "Seal the card! Use the spell I taught you."

"R- right!" I pointed the staff towards her. "Return to the guise you were meant to be in, SAKURA card!" I light appeared at the end of the staff as the woman turned to gray smoke that was sucked towards the staff. A glowing card formed at the tip of the staff, then turned to a pink color as I caught it.

The dog returned to its normal size. Kerberos turned around, growled at it, and sent it away crying. "You caught you first card!" He exclaimed as he floated over to me.

"Woop-de-do," I said sarcastically.

"Don't worry," Kerberos said to me. "Only 50 more to more go,"

"Fi- fifty!!?" I covered my eyes as Kerberos laughed evilly. "I HATE you.

_Next time: Lenny invites me over to his house to see his new painting. Apparently he saw something last night that inspired him to paint it, I wonder what it was. And of course while I'm there another card reveals it self. Maybe I'll go find a nice cave and hibernate for the rest of my life, yah that sounds good._

Authoresses' note: Ok, please review, no harsh flames. I will not update until I have at least 2 reviews.


	4. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Raithe slammed his locker shut with an apathetic expression; First real day of school. Two hands slid onto his shoulders as a smiling face peered over his shoulder to look at his face.

"Good morning star shine, the earth says HELLO!" Lenny exclaimed. Raithe sighed.

"I knew it was a bad idea to send you American movies," The black haired teen replied. Today his highlights were dark purple. Lenny jumped back, closed his one eye, and shook his finger back in forth in the same manner that Manfred Vonkarma (Gou Karuma) from the game Phoenix Wright does.

"You shouldn't be so cranky on the first day of school,"

"Why? School sucks,"

"If you think it sucks, then it truly will." Lenny put his arm around his friend as they began to walk to their first class. "Stop being so negative, you'll only destroy your life doing that." Raithe sighed.

"You're way to optimistic, Lenny."

"I try,"

Raithe stared out the window in the homeroom classroom as the English teacher read from a book.

_FLASHBACK_

"_Return to the guise you were meant to be in, SAKURA card!" I light appeared at the end of the staff as the woman turned to gray smoke that was sucked towards the staff. A glowing card formed at the tip of the staff, then turned to a pink color as I caught it._

_END FLASHBACK_

_How am I supposed to capture cards while trying to keep up with studies? _He thought to himself. He was interrupted from his thoughts by something poking his arm.

"Huh,"

"Mr. Imahara," The teacher said. Raithe looked at her, but out of the corner of his eye saw that it had been Lenny poking him. "Please continue reading," She said. Raithe stood up as he held the book.

"Uh, right,"

"Page 35," Lenny hissed.

"Ah, right," Raithe said as he began to read.

Lunchtime soon came. Raithe sat at his homeroom desk as he looked at his lunch, which consisted of sushi and various vegetables. He then clapped his hands together. "Itadakimasu," He then broke apart his chopsticks as he went to eat.

"Yo!" Lenny exclaimed as he appeared behind him from no where, putting his arm around his startled friend.

"L- Lenny!" Raithe exclaimed, his eyes as big as dinner plates. "Don't do that!"

"Gomen nasai," He said as he pulled his desk, which was next to Raithe's, over and sat down.

As Raithe went to take a bite of his sushi, he glanced up, seeing Sara leave the room with Haku, both carrying their lunches. He figured they were going outside to eat by the cherry blossoms.

"Hey, Lenny, let's eat outside," Raithe said as he began to get up, but Lenny grabbed his blazer.

"Raithe, chasing after her is not healthy for you," He said.

"Chasing after whom? I don't know what you're-"

"Just sit down and eat," Lenny said, pulling his friend back into his seat. Raithe stared out the window, a few minuets later Sara and Haku appeared, and as he suspected, began to eat their lunches by the cherry blossoms.

"Oi, Raithe," Lenny said, interrupting his thoughts. "I painted this really neat picture last night, wanna come over and see it? While you were gone, my parents turned half of the attic into a new studio for me, it's huuuuuuuuuuge."

"Sure," Raithe replied, barely paying attention. Lenny smiled evilly as he rubbed his hands together.

"You may not care now, but just wait until you see it, bwahahahahahahaha!!!" Raithe whacked him over the head.

"People are staring," He hissed. "What's your problem?"

"Absolutely nothing, hehehe," Raithe raised an eyebrow.

**RAITHE'S POV**

After school, Lenny dragged me by my sleeve to the car that was waiting outside. As the car pulled away, I saw Sara, with Haku of course, she waved to me as she smiled weakly.

I still wasn't entirely sure what had happened, but it was pretty obvious to me by now that:

Sara had grown out of her nerdiness.

She was finally getting the recognition from Haku that she had longed for since, well, forever, and so to keep him liking her, she's not hanging around with us because Haku is mine and Lenny's mortal enemy.

Perhaps she just didn't really care about us anymore.

But my subconscious forbade me from actively considering that third possibility. I refused to believe it to be true.

The drive to Lenny's house was shorter than I remembered. Before I knew it, we were driving through the giant cast iron gates and up the steep half a mile long driveway.

_FLASHBACK_

_9 year old Raithe gapped at the humongous house ahead of him as he stood in front of the gate. He walked over to the security booth. _

"_Um, excuse me," He began. The guard looked at him, annoyed._

"_What'd ya want, kid?" He asked._

"_I must have the wrong address; I'm looking for Lenny Suzuki…?"_

_The guard sat up a little straighter. "What do you want with Master Suzuki?" He asked._

"_Um, see, my name is Raithe-" The guard fully sat up now._

"_Oh, you're Raithe," He said as he pressed some buttons. "sorry," The gate suddenly swung open. "Go right ahead, Master Suzuki is waiting for you." Raithe blinked as he slowly began his ascent towards the house._

_20 MINUETS LATER_

_Raithe panted as he pulled himself up the driveway on his stomach. His legs felt completely numb. "Almost… there…" He totally collapsed onto the ground a few feet away from the huge double oak doors. The door on the right swung open as a 9 year old Lenny smiled at him._

"_You made it!" He exclaimed. "I've been watching you for the last twenty minuets, I'll tell you, I really wasn't sure if you'd make it or not…but you did!" Raithe slowly got up, breathing heavily. He stumbled over to his friend._

"_Why the heck didn't you send a golf cart or something?!" He grabbed the collar of Lenny's white blouse. Immediately, he was surrounded my muscular men wearing black suits, all were pointing a pistol at him._

"_Release Master Suzuki," The one said. Raithe fainted._

_END FLASHBACK_

I stepped out of the car after Lenny and stared up at the huge mansion. If my memory was correct, the outside of the house looked HUGE, but the inside looked even huger.

"Remember the first time you came here," Lenny said. "Man that was funny." I glared at him, immediately silencing his laughter. "Ok, let's go in." He said quickly as I continued to glare at him. Two woman wearing short black dresses and white aprons opened the two oak doors. The first thing I saw was the steep double sided marble staircase, and above the landing at the top was a huuuuuge window that gave you a perfect view of their 50 acre back yard. We climbed up the steps, and when we got to the landing I stared out the window.

It was just as beautiful as I remembered. Directly below us was the ginormous garden with big trees around it giving the area plenty of shade and a huge fountain right in the center. Around the garden were huge fields where we would dirt bike and stuff, and waaaaaaaay far down was a stream to go boating and fishing and swimming… but we never swam, we didn't even swim in his giant pool outside and even bigger pool inside… I don't like swimming, especially not outside.

"Come on, man." Lenny said as he began walking up the stairs to the right of me that led to the east wing of the house. Once up those steps, we were in a large hallway. I walked to the center room on the left side and touched the door knob.

"Uh, what are you doing?" Lenny asked.

"This is your room, right?"

"WAS my room, now I have the second half of the attic," He explained as I followed him down the hall. His sister, Rosa, was a junior at Tokyo University I believe, or was she a freshman? I wasn't sure. I had never really seen much of her, like Lenny she was an amazing artist, and usually spent most of her time in her studio, which was in the attic. I suppose that since she went to collage, they kicked her out.

"I thought your sister's room was in the attic?" I asked. Lenny stopped.

"Dude, do you seriously think that my sister could live in the entire attic by herself? I mean, yah, she has a lot of stuff but," I was guessing their attic was pretty big, which made sense: Their house was humongous. Lenny opened a door, revealing a steep staircase that spiraled up at least two or three floors. My jaw dropped.

"Well, there's the stair case," I took in a deep breath. I'd best get started. I sprinted up the steps as quickly as I good. "Wait, Raithe!" Lenny called, but I couldn't hear the rest, nor could I stop.

5 MINUETS LATER

My legs collapsed beneath me as I panted. I slowly began to slide back down the steps. Before I knew it, I was on the soft carpet. I looked around, Lenny wasn't anywhere. How had he passed me? Lenny was even less athletically fit then I was, unless he seriously worked out while I was gone. I stood up, ready to try again.

5 MORE MINUETS LATER

I grabbed the soft carpet at the top of the steps and pulled myself up. I collapsed onto the white carpet; I could see Lenny's black shoes standing in front of me. "You ok dude?" He asked. He grabbed my arm and helped me up.

"How… how did you climb up all those steps so quickly?" I asked.

"Steps?" Lenny asked. "You'd have to be an idiot to climb up those, I took the elevator," He pointed to an elevator with his thumb. I felt like I was going to pass out.

"Why didn't you tell me?!" I exclaimed.

"I was going to, but you ran up so quickly I didn't get a chance." I sighed. I then looked around the room. It was an average sized room with a black leather couch, and where there should've been a wall by the door was instead what looked to be a TV screen. By it were two giant speakers on either side.

Lenny then showed me his bedroom. Against the one wall was a king sized canopy bed, across from that a big black dresser, a comfy looking chair in the corner with a floor lamp by it, and a door that led to a huge bathroom with a pool sized bath tub.

"Alright, now to show you my favorite room," He said, leading me back to the main room that led to the giant stair case of death. Across from his bedroom door were two white double doors (this place seemed to have a lot of double doors.) He pushed it open, and I gasped.

The carpet was burgundy red with gold outline. On the opposite wall were three HUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGE windows that overlooked the back yard. The room was incredib, probably bigger than his old bedroom (which was, of course, huge) and his new one combined. Against the wall with the door, you couldn't even see the white wall, for it was nothing but a giant silver cabinet, probably stuffed full with all his paintings and art supplies. The only furniture in the room was an easel set up directly in the center of the room, and next to it was a small table with paints and paint brushes and glasses of murky water.

"Lenny," I murmured as I walked forward. "This room is amazing."

"Told ya," He said as he smirked. "Come here," He walked over to the left wall, which was covered by a red curtain." Last night, I painted a mural," He began. My jaw dropped. He painted a whole mural in one night? He told me that the wall was three feet thick; it separated his side of the attic from his sisters. You could only enter his sister's room from the west wing, which I had been forbidden from entering a long time ago.

"Ready?" He asked. He pulled back the curtain, and for what seemed like the millionth time that day, I felt like I was going to faint. On the wall was what appeared to be me, in my pajamas, carrying a pink staff with a star on it, fighting off a giant dog with a little yellow creature floating beside me.

"What the…" I stuttered. "H- How, uh…creative,"

"You wanna know where I got my inspiration for it?" He asked, walking towards me as I backed away.

"Um, not really," I said.

"See, I couldn't sleep last night, so I went up to the tower,"

"Tower?" I asked. I had never heard of a tower, although I do slightly remember seeing one from outside, though usually I tried not to look up, it made me dizzy.

"Yah, anyways, I thought that I had seen something, so I pulled out my telescope-"

"I wanna see this tower," I said. "I've never been up there." I backed up against the wall.

"Do you know what I saw?" He asked, an evil look in his eye.

"Gosh Lenny, I'm hungry, how about-" Lenny placed his hand on the wall above me head as he leaned closer to me. "Lenny, this is a really awkward position, maybe you could back up,"

"It's really quite amazing what I saw," He said, still moving closer to me.

"You're intruding upon my personally bubble," I said.

"It was so weird,"

"Personal bubble!"

The door suddenly burst open.

"Otooto," Said a girl with long, light brown hair and dark brown eyes. She was wearing a pair of dark blue jeans and light green blouse with a gold belt tied around her waist. She stared at the scene in front of her, then giggled. "Oh I'm sorry, didn't mean to interrupt you guys,"

"Ane, stop barging into my room," Lenny said as though absolutely nothing was wrong with the picture.

"Gomen, gomen. You guys continue with what you were doing," She said as she closed the door.

"Wait, this isn't what it looks like!" I exclaimed, but it was futile. Rosa now suspected that I was truly gay.

"Now where we?" Lenny asked, turning back me. "Oh yes, when I looked through my telescope, I saw exactly the scene that I painted!" He exclaimed.

I had to find away around this. "Lenny, you were probably just dreaming. You always have dreams and paint pictures of them."

Lenny seemed to lean back a little. "Yah, I thought about that," I sighed. Perhaps I had actually gotten off the hook. "So to make sure, I took a picture," I fell over as he ran out of the room. I quickly followed him and found him sitting on the couch in the main room, playing pictures from his laptop onto the wall TV. After several pictures of flowers and things for Lenny to paint pictures of, we came to a picture identical to the mural in the studio.

"See," Lenny said. He looked at me. "So spill it, what's the deal?" I sighed. There was truly no way out of this. I sighed.

"Alright, I tell you," Suddenly a chill shot down my spine, a chill identical to the one I had felt the previous night. Perhaps it was a SAKURA card. "Maybe I can show you," I said as I walked towards the elevator.

"Cool!" Lenny exclaimed as he followed me. I walked down to the entrance as I looked around. The feeling was much stronger now. "Do you hear that?" Lenny asked. I listened.

"It sounds like screaming." I replied. We decided that it sounded as though it was coming from the kitchen, and I had a feeling I knew what it was. As we ran closer, the feeling as though a SAKURA card was near increased. We burst through the kitchen floor and found ourselves surrounded by knee deep bubbles.

"What the-" Lenny began.

"I was right, it is a SAKURA card," I muttered. I vaguely recalled Kerberos naming all the cards, but I wasn't really paying attention, though right now the name 'The BUBBLES' stuck out in my head. "Alright Lenny, this is what I was doing last night," I pulled out the necklace.

"What the heck is that?" Lenny asked as he stared at the pink necklace.

"Don't worry about it," I said. I then tossed it up into the air. "Key of the star with powers burning bright reveal the staff and shine your light, Release!" The necklace turned into the pink staff as I caught it. Lenny's eyes turned big as he stared at it, speechless.

I then saw a small girl amongst the bubbles and pointed the staff at her. "Return to the guise you were meant to be in, SAKURA card!" The girl turned into pink smoke as she and all the bubbles flew towards the staff and turned into a card. As the card turned solid, I caught it and looked at it.

The kitchen workers were lying on the floor, unconscious, but other wise ok. I then looked over at Lenny.

"What the heck did you just do?" He asked. I quickly explained everything to him, which wasn't very much. After my story was complete, he stared at me, and then looked at the staff. "That… that thing, the 'star staff,'…. It…" Suddenly he exploded into laughter. "It's so GIRLY!!!!!" He roared as he fell down, clutching his stomach. I glared at him, but it did nothing to silence him. "Hahaha, you're, haha, the Cardcaptor, hahaha, and you have to, hahaha, get SAKURA cards, hahaha, with a pink staff!!!"

"Yah, I'm going home," I said as I walked towards the door, leaving Lenny alone with nothing but his laughter.

XXXXXXXX

"Haaaaaah," Kerberos exclaimed as I showed him the newly captured BUBBLES card. "You actually caught another one," He said. "But next time take me with you, do you know how boring it was just hanging out all day here?"

"It's not my fault, I mean, how was I supposed to know there'd be a SAKURA card at Lenny's house?" Although I was glad I was there. Who knows how bad that could've turned out if I hadn't been there? I just hope that next time I'm as lucky.

_Next Time: It's time for the fitness exam, worst day of the year, but for some reason this guy, who usually is as fast I am, is going faster than Haku. I'm guessing it's another SAKURA card, so I'd best find it before anything bad happens._

Authoress' note: Please review, no harsh flame, and I will not update until I have at least 2 reviews.

Ah yes, you have probably figured out how to pronounce most of their names, but there is one in particular you might be saying wrong, not sure.

Sara isn't pronounced like the American name with the alternate spelling of 'Sarah,' or as it's pronounced, 's- air- uh.' In my story, Sara is pronounced 'S- are- uh.' Not really sure why or how I thought of that (I really don't think it's a name) but yah, that's how you say it. I think the rest are kinda obvious.


	5. Chapter 4

Authoress' note: Hey, sorry, meant to update last Wednesday, but had a speech due on Thursday so forgot, then when I remembered my internet wasn't working, but now it is :). So, unless I forget, I will update every Wednesday, so now you wont have to be thinking "Oh, when is she going to update?" So yah, now you know. Enjoy the chapter.

Chapter 4

Raithe stood up as he finished stretching. He was wearing navy shorts and white t-shirt, as were all the other guys. All the guys in the class were standing by the schools track field. On the other side were the girls, wearing dark green bloomers (basically just underwear) with white t-shirts as well.

Lenny sighed as he placed his elbow on Raithe's shoulder. "Don't you just love gym in the spring and summer?" He asked, gazing to where the girls were.

"No," Raithe replied, looking down at his bony legs. "I hate gym, period." At this school there was a beginning of the year fitness test. They'd all run around the half mile track twice and their times would be recorded. Then, in February, after Christmas break, they'd have another test, to see how each person had improved since then.

"Alright, guys," The gym teacher said. "Everyone, line up in front of the white line," He pointed to the line at the start of the track. Haku cracked his neck and his knuckles as he walked over. From the other side, the girls stared in awe at his muscular form.

**RAITHE'S POV**

It's really a shame that such beautiful weather must be wasted by something as meaningless as gym class. I lined up next to Lenny and this we've known since second grade, Jun Kanahito. He had black hair and brown eyes covered by large round glasses. The one thing that made me feel better about gym class was that I always knew that no matter how awful I did (which is pretty awful) Jun would always do worse.

"Ok, on your mark," Everyone put their hands on the ground as their left foot was bent forward and their right foot behind them. "Get set…" He his whistle as we all set off. One step, two steps, three, four, five, Lenny fell over.

"Lenny!" I ran back to where he had collapsed, which was only a few feet away from the starting line. "Lenny," I said as I knelt down next to him.

"Can't… go on…"

"Can't go on?! You ran five paces!"

"Go on… without me…" And then his head fell to the ground.

"You know," The coach said as his eyes were narrow and small dots. "He should really try out for the drama club. I nodded with the same look on my face.

I turned around and began to jog again. Everyone seemed to be much further than me, but I pressed on. Within seconds, I was already out of breath. I decided that I defiantly needed to work out more. I looked back, just to see if anyone was behind me, though of course no one was. I didn't even see Jun. But as I glanced back again, I could vaguely see Haku coming towards me. I was ahead of him somehow; I had to run faster, had to keep the lead, too late.

"Hey there, loser," He said as He ran foot or so ahead of me while running backwards. I smirked.

"I was ahead of you until a second ago," I forced myself to run faster, I had to beat him.

"Ahead of me? I'm on my second lap," My smile immediately disappeared.

"You… you depress me, Haku." I said. Now it was his turn to smirk.

"I try my hardest," and with that he easily sped away from me. After at least fifteen minuets (it could've been more) I finished my second lap. I fell on the ground as I breathed heavily.

"You're pathetic," Lenny said as he stood over me.

"I'm pathetic!? At least I got all the way around, you could barely run 5 steps!" Lenny shrugged.

"Details, who needs them?" I fell over. "Anyways," He said. "Haku seems really ticked off about something." I looked over, and sure enough, Haku was yelling at the coach, Jun next to him.

"There is no way the retard beat me!" He exclaimed. "This kid is even more pathetic than Imahara, he couldn't possibly have gotten he faster than I did!"

"Mr. Wanderheim, I've heard wonderful things about your athletic ability, but that doesn't mean you're necessarily the best. Mr. Kanahito clearly finished before you, end of discussion." The coach walked away with Jun, telling him that he should consider joining the track team, leaving Haku behind, screaming curses at them and anyone he felt like screaming at.

"I don't like Haku," Lenny began. "But I do know Jun, and I know he'd never be faster than Haku, no matter how much he trained." I nodded.

"Agreed, something's not right."

"Maybe it's one of those," Lenny snickered. "Pretty pink SAKURA cards," He snickered again as I glared at him. "I guess you'll need to snicker pull out your snicker, snicker star staff!" He turned away, covering his mouth. I could clearly hear his muffled laughter.

"Jerk," I said as I kicked the back of his knee, sending him falling face first into the ground.

XXXXXXX

We soon returned to the class room, but only to get our books. We had chemistry next and so would move to the science lab. I put my gym clothes in my locker at the back of my room, and then went back to my desk where Lenny was.

"I wonder what chemistry will be like," He wondered aloud.

"Well, there's a ton of math involved, so you know I'll fail at it."

"You mean 'we'," Lenny corrected. I smiled.

"Well, we know Sara will do extremely well," Lenny's face became somber.

"Yah, and of course she'll tutor her boyfriend," I slammed my hand down on his desk.

"He's not her boyfriend!"

"He will be,"

"You keep tell me that, but so far,"

"He's waiting," Lenny suddenly said.

"Waiting, for what?"

"Until when asking her out will hurt you the most," I opened my mouth to say something, but no words came out. I turned away and grabbed my back pack, decided to rummage through it just for the sake of giving me something to do. "We should get going," Lenny said softly. "Don't wanna be late for chemistry."

I opened my back pack and nodded. I got ready to close it, when something jumped out.

"Finally!"

"Ah!" Lenny quickly turned around.

"It was getting really stuffy in there,"

"K- Kerberos!" I exclaimed. Lenny leaned down to examine the small yellow plush toy.

"This is Kerberos, the guardian of the seal?" He asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Yes, who wants to know?" He replied.

"Kerberos,"

"I told you to just call me Kero," He said.

"Ok, Kero, this is my friend Lenny- kun,"

"Oooooooooh," Kero began. "So you're that really stupid kis who isn't good for anything except painting and is even more pathetic than Raithe." Lenny looked at me, all I could do was shrug.

"He uh, has a way of saying people said stuff that they actual didn't say." I laughed as convincingly as I could manage.

"What are you talking about? you said the exact same thing last night." Kero said. Lenny's eye narrowed. "Wha- hey!" Kerberos exclaimed as I shoved him back in my back pack, and then gathered up my chemistry books.

"Well, we best hurry," I said as I quickly walked out of the room, Lenny still glaring at me.

Chemistry seemed to go on forever, but it finally did end. As I had expected, Sara seemed to take in everything as though it were kindergarten stuff, and as I expected, and had no clue what anyone was talking about. We then went back to homeroom and completed our other classes for the day, all very boring.

"Raithe- kun!" Lenny exclaimed as he ran over to me. "We should join a club." He said.

I stared at him, and then continued to walk down the hall. "I hate clubs, too troublesome."

"Too troublesome? You are such a bore!"

"Well you're a baka,"

"Bore,"

"Baka,"

"Bore,"

"Baka!"

"Bore!"

"BAKA!" A shiver suddenly shot down my spine, that same, incredible chill that appeared when ever there was a SAKURA card. Then, around the corner came Jun, surrounded by at least a dozen girls.

"Wow, Jun," One girl was saying. "I didn't know you were such a good athlete," Jun shrugged.

"Well, this just proves that even someone like me can be an athlete if you work hard enough, who knows, even someone as pathetic as Imahara- kun could be great."

"Imahara?" All the girls laughed.

"He'll be good at something when Haku asks me out," One girl said.

"But that's so nice of you to have such faith in your friends," My eye twitched as the group passed.

"At least they didn't say anything about me," Lenny murmured.

"Wow, Raithe, I didn't know you were so popular," Kero said sarcastically. I glared at the creature. "At least Sakura- chan was athletic." I decided to ignore it all. There was only one way Jun was so fast.

"He has a SAKURA card," I said.

"Really?" Lenny exclaimed.

"Ah, I was wondering how long it'd take you to notice." Kero said.

"Would you stop acting like you know everything," I asked him. He smirked.

"Sorry kid, but this is no act," We both fell over at this. "Anyways, my genius aside, how are we going to get this card?"

"I thought you were supposed to know that, oh wise beast of the seal." I mocked him. He glared at me, but I, being the glaring master, was not effected.

"I have a plan!" Lenny exclaimed.

"Oh no," I said. I had a reaaaaaaally bad feeling about.

"Meet me outside of Jun's house tonight at ten o'clock, and don't worry; all nerds go to bed at eight." And with that he ran off. Although I knew something really bad was going to happen, I figured my best bet would be go to his house, otherwise Lenny would give me a huge lecture tomorrow.

Some how I managed to get out of the house without my parents noticing (I gave that same lame cliché excuse that I was tired, going to bed early, don't disturb, stuff the pillows under the blankets, lock the door, just in case.

Jun lived in a small apartment a few blocks away from my old house. Amazingly enough, the entire family was out. Jun had an older brother, an older sister, and 3 younger brothers with two younger sisters, plus his grandmother lived with them, and I couldn't imagine his house was much bigger than my own.

"So where's your friend?" Kero asked as we looked around.

"Pssssssssssst," I looked over and saw Lenny waving me over with his hand from behind a tree. "Raithe- kun,"

"Why are you hiding?" I asked as I approached him.

"And what are you wearing?" Kero asked. Lenny was wearing black- what appeared to be leather- pants and a sleeveless black leather shirt with long black gloves, black boots, and a ski mask.

"Well, what if someone see us?' He replied. "We don't want them to know our identity so we get arrested."

I now had a reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeally, really, really, really bad feeling about this. "Why would we get arrested?"

"Well, suppose we got mistaken for robbers,"

"Why would we get mistaken for robbers?" Kero inquired.

Lenny then lifted up a rope with a hook at the end over his shoulder. "Because we're breaking into his house, of course."

"Oh, is that all?" I replied; it hadn't quite sunk in what he said. "Wait, what!?"

"Here," Lenny said as he tossed me a bundle of clothes. "Put that on."

**NORMAL**

Lenny tossed the rope up, and the hook caught onto the window sill. He tugged at it, and when he was sure it was secure, he began his ascent. He Pushed up the window glass (it was open) and slid into the room. "Ok, Raithe," He called down.

"What?" Raithe asked. Lenny whirled around, only to see his friend standing across from him.

"How did you…"

"The front door," He replied. "There's no way I'm climbing up a wall in this." He was wearing a long black trench coat with leather boots and leather gloves. Around his waist was a leather belt.

"Well?" Lenny asked.

"Well what?"

"Do you sense a SAKURA card?"

Raithe looked around. "Actually,"

"The DASH!" Kerberos exclaimed suddenly. We both looked over and saw a pink cat thing sitting on the couch, looking at them. "It can run at amazing speed, and also has the ability to transfer its power into someone or something.

"So that's why Jun was so fast," Lenny commented.

"Quick Raithe, capture it!" Kero cried. The DASH eyed them cautiously.

"Key of the star with powers burning bright reveal the staff and shine your light, Release!" Immediately DASH sped off into the other room. "WINDY! Stop DASH with a binding chain, release!" WINDY flew out of the card and chased after DASH. They all winced as they heard crashing sounds. Dash ran back into the living room, and into the kitchen, and off the walls and across the tables with valuable vases. WINDY chased after it, both creatures knocking over anything and everything in its path. DASH then jumped out the open window, closely followed by WINDY.

"After that SAKURA CARD!" Kero exclaimed. Both Raithe and Lenny jumped out the window, chasing after the cards as best as they could while Kero floated behind them.

**TEN MINUETS LATER**

Raithe put his hands on his knees as he panted. "Where… did… they go…?" He said. Next to him Lenny collapsed onto his stomach.

"So… tired… can't…move…."

"You guys are pathetic," Kero said. "Even Sakura-chan, an eight year old, wasn't nearly as pathetic as…"

"Raithe gave him an icy cold glare, a glare so fierce, it would probably be able to make a grown man cry. "Anyways," Kero said awkwardly. "We should find that SAKURA card."

**RAITHE'S POV**

Oh how I love my glare, it's the one thing I'm good at… besides playing the piano. "Alright," I said, straightening up. "Let's go,"

"You go ahead," Lenny said. "I'll just take a nap here,"

"Ok… I'm not coming back for you." I said, and then ran off after the card.

**Ten MORE minuets later**

"Face it Kero, it's gone, and WINDY ran away too."

"Windy can't run away," Kero said. "Once you catch a card, it's yours, unless… did you write your name on it?"

"Why would I write my name on it?"

"Because that means you own the card, baka! If you don't, the cards can escape!!"

"….Oh… woops…"

"Baka," Kero muttered as he turned away. I sighed, suddenly a chill shot down my spine.

"Hey, that felt like…" DASH came bursting through the bushes, running at top speed towards me. "Gah!" I exclaimed, followed by an 'oomph' as DASH collided head long into my abdomen. Before I knew what had really happened, my back and head collided with the pavement, and it was quite painful might I add. I wrapped my arms around DASH as it struggled to get away. I then touched it with the star staff as best as I could.

"Return… to the guise…" I struggled to say. "You were meant to be in, SAKURA card!" The DASH turned into pink smoke as it then formed into a glowing card, then solidified and landed on my chest as I breathed heavily.

"You did it!" Kero exclaimed. "Now you just have to go find WINDY." I sighed. A chill then shot down my spine as WINDY passed over me.

"Return to the guise you were meant to be in SAKURA card." I said all very quickly in a monotone as I raised the staff. Windy was then sucked back into the card.

Kerberos then hovered above me. "And this time, write your name on the cards.

XXXXXXXX

"There," I said as I wrote my name on The DASH. I then looked at the four cards that I had: The WINDY, The BIG, The BUBBLES, and The DASH. I sighed. I hated to admit it, but was actually starting to get used to it all, at least a little bit. "You know, I can't help but feel that we forgot something…"

"Really, like what?"

XXXXXXXXX

Lenny mumbled something as he slept on the sidewalk, when suddenly a person out on a late night bike ride ran over him.

"GAH!!!" He exclaimed as the wheels rolled over his back. The bike then went tumbling into the street as a car came, which saw the person at the last second and swerved, hitting a telephone pole. The driver jumped out of the car just in time as the engine exploded, setting the wires on fire, which then set the near by house on fire. Lenny cringed in pain as the once peaceful night was now filled with fire and sirens.

He slowly stood up, his hand on his back as he slowly walked away.


	6. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Raithe couldn't help but smile as he fingers gracefully danced across the black ebony and the white ivory keys. A cool breeze gently tossed his hair around as the giant window was next to him. Lenny had gotten the piano moved into his art studio so that Raithe could play while he painted, saying that Raithe's playing would also be good inspiration for his painting.

_FLASHBACK_

"_Lenny, what's this surprise?" Raithe asked for the millionth time as Lenny touched the door handles to his art studio. The light haired boy smiled._

"_Just promise me you won't pee your pants, ok?" He then pushed open the doors, and then stepped back. _

_Raithe gave him a questioning glance, then immediately his eyes fell onto a gorgeous grand piano with its top up in the right corner of the room by one of the giant windows. Raithe's eyes glowed as he couldn't help but notice how beautifully the sunlight shone on the instrument. _

_He wanted to say something, but no words would come out of his mouth. He slowly walked over to it, a slight smile on his face. He then gradually extended his hand and placed it on the lid covering the keys, then quickly pulled his hand back with a gasp as his eyes were sparkly._

"_It… it's real!" He exclaimed._

"_Of course it's real," Lenny stated as his eyes were small dots. He turned and went to go to his easel, when Raithe gasped again, only this one sounded horrified. "What's wrong?" He asked as Raithe looked traumatized._

"_There… there's a smudge on it!" Lenny fell over. Raithe quickly took off his school blazer and rubbed the area with the smudge, then literally hugged the piano. "It's ok, from now on you won't have anymore smudges,"_

_Lenny stood up with a disturbed expression on his face. "Yah, and you say I'm a freak," He muttered._

"_You are," Raithe called back as his arms were still spread across the lifted lid and his head resting on it._

"_Well I'm not the one hugging the flippin' piano!"_

_END FLASH BACK_

Lenny looked over as Raithe's body lightly moved back and forth as he hands almost effortlessly moved across the keyboard. How he played wit his eyes closed, Lenny would never know.

_You truly are happiest when playing the piano, aren't you Raithe- kun? _Lenny thought to himself as he smirked.

Raithe sighed has he finished playing the song. It had been a very long time since he had been able to play how ever long he wanted to, without anyone coming to tell him he needed to stop. If life was fair, he'd be able to sit in that beautiful room and just play all day. Screw school, screw the shop; even if he were to be locked in a dark room with no way out, no food, no water, he'd be happy as long as there was a piano.

"You really are amazing, Raithe- kun." Lenny said, pulling Raithe from his fantasy. Raithe slightly smiled.

"I'm not that good," Suddenly there was an impact on the back of his head.

"Not that good?" Lenny repeated as held up another paint brush, ready to throw it if necessary. "You're amazing. You could be famous and have your own CDs and make thousands of dollars if you'd just have a little faith in yourself. Maybe if you're not quite that good now, you could be if you applied yourself a little more."

Raithe stared at the keys as he fingers lightly rested on them.

"You can only get so far on pure talent you know," Lenny continued.

"I'd never have the time to practice that much, my dad's opinion is that 'you can only be truly successful in life if you have a real job in a real office.'"

Lenny turned back to his painting as Raithe began to play another song out of his seemingly limitless library of songs. "Hey Raithe," He said.

"Hm?" He replied, that truly happy feeling returning to him.

"What did Kaito- sensei want from you this morning?"

Raithe's smile faded as the ecstatic feeling faded.

_FLASH BACK_

_Everyone searched through their desks for books for their next class as Kaito- sensei gathered up his things and students erased the black board. _

"_Mr. Imahara," Kaito- sensei said. Raithe looked up. "Can I talk to you in the hall way for a moment?" Raithe glanced at Lenny then followed the silver haired man out of the room. The man looked Raithe over for a moment, and then spoke. "You may not be aware of this, but I'm also the music teacher," He said._

"_I've heard that," Raithe said._

"_I also understand that you haven't joined any clubs," Raithe's heart skipped a beat; he knew where this conversation was going. _

"_Between homework and working at my parents shop, I have no time for clubs," He turned to go back to the class room._

"_I've heard many things about you Mr. Imahara," Kaito- sensei said. "I've met some of your old teachers, they described you as," He paused as he sighed. "A slacker, completely athletically and academically inept," Raithe nearly glared at the man._

_Why is he telling me all this? He wondered. _

"_And yet despite all that, they've also said you're a genius of music." Raithe blinked._

"_My old teachers said that?" He asked, completely shocked. _

"_Yes, they said you were a complete genius of music, that the only thing you seemed passionate about was playing the piano, that you're truly seemed to love it." Raithe turned away as his bangs covered his eyes._

"_I'm sorry Kaito- sensei, but I don't have time for any clubs,"_

"_Raithe, I think you would enjoy playing the schools piano…"_

"_My next class will be starting soon," He replied softly as he walked back into the room. _

_Lenny cast him a questioning glance as he sat down and rested his cheek on the palm of his hand as he gazed out the window. _

END FLASH BACK

Raithe's hands froze an inch or so above the keys. Lenny looked at him a bit surprised. "What's wrong?" He asked. "What'd Kaito- sensei ask you?"

"He… asked me to join the music club…"

"That's great!" Lenny exclaimed. "I heard you had to be really good to get in. See, that proves that you're good if Kaito- sensei actually asked you to join, I heard he's really good-"

"I can't, Lenny,"

"Can't what?"

"My dad would never allow it. Maybe if my grades didn't suck so bad, but…" Lenny's smile disappeared.

"Do… you want to join the music club?" He asked.

Raithe firmly placed his hands down as he played a new song, his fingers once again skating across the keys. "I've never wanted anything more than this," He practically whispered.

(A/N: On a side note, the song I see him playing is 'Fearless (250 and dark stars)' from the Falling Up CD 'Exit Lights.' I wish I could find piano music for it, it's sooooo cool and pretty)

Raithe placed his normal shoes in his locker and closed the door.

"Good morning!" Lenny exclaimed as he suddenly appeared behind him. Raithe felt as though his heart was going to explode from his chest as his eyes were wide. He placed his hand over his chest, his heart beating quickly from the shock.

"Jerk!" He yelled as he whirled around at Lenny. "Don't be so carefree this hour of the morning!"

Lenny had stepped back several paces as he was now startled. "Don't be so hateful this early in the morning!" He exclaimed. Raithe sighed as picked up his back pack and headed towards the stairs to the homeroom classroom as Lenny ran after him.

"You still upset about the music thing?" He asked.

"I'll get over it," Raithe replied dully. "Just like how I got over how when I was ten my dad made me stop taking piano lessons,"

"Oh, you never needed lessons; you were practically a prodigy."

"And how he wouldn't allow me to perform at that public concert,"

"Who want to perform in front of all those people anyways, I'd get stage fright."

"And how he won't let me save up my money for a nice piano,"

"You'd rather save up your money for a piano rather than a car?"

"And how-"

"Ok, I get it. You're a sad, depressed, and emo child because your dad won't let you do anything involving the piano because he thinks it'll distract you from school… which it does."

"I'm not emo…" Raithe said as he looked at Lenny.

"If you say so," He replied.

The day seemed to drag on forever. Gym class was especially interesting; it was the first class after the exam, and it'd be interesting to see what Jun would do.

_DAY AFTER DASH WAS CAUGHT_

_Raithe and Lenny entered the class room as a swarm of girls were around Jun's desk._

"_That's horrible," One said._

"_Who would do something like that?"_

"_What's going on?" Raithe asked._

"_You're not going to believe it," Sara said as she looked at them. "Someone ransacked Jun's house last night." Raithe and Lenny slowly looked at each other. "Nothing was stolen, but the house was completely trashed._

"_R- really?" Raithe forced himself to say._

"_And then there was that accident near his house," One girl said._

"_Accident?" Raithe asked._

"_Yah, some idiot was taking a nap on the sidewalk, and a person riding a bike on his way home from work didn't see him and ran over him, causing him to fall into the street, and a car just barely saw him, and so swerved and hit a telephone pole, causing his engine to blow up which caused the wires to catch on fire and the house near it." The girl explained. Raithe stared at her as Lenny rubbed his back._

"_What idiot would just sleep on the sidewalk?" Sara asked? Raithe slowly turned to look at Lenny._

"_What idiot indeed?" Lenny smiled as innocently as he could manage. _

_END FLASHBACK_

Finally all the classes were over, but Raithe, Lenny, Sara, Haku, and some other people had cleaning duty.

"I hate cleaning," Lenny mumbled as he mopped the floor.

Raithe was sloppily washed the windows as he stared at Sara who was wiping off the black board.

"Sara- chan," One girl said. "Have you heard about the ghost in the music room?"

"Ghost? Maiko- chan, you really don't believe in ghosts, do you?" She replied, slightly laughing, but not in a cruel way.

"O- of course not! That's just what other people call it," She said defensively. "One girl stayed late the other night, and she was going by the music room when she heard some one singing, or more humming, even though the room was pitch black, and she was sure no one else was in the school. Isn't that creepy?"

"I'd say it's more weird than creepy,"

"Hey," Lenny suddenly whispered.

"Gah!" Raithe exclaimed, as he was startled. Everyone looked at him.

"Are you ok, Raithe- kun?" Sara asked.

"Of course he's not ok, Sara- chan," Haku whispered, but it was obvious he wasn't trying to not be heard. "weirdo,"

"What?!" Raithe hissed at Lenny. "I mean, sheesh! Do you have to keep startling me?"

"Well maybe if you'd stop day dreaming," Raithe gave him a look that said 'get to the frickin' point!' Lenny cleared his throat. "I was just going to say, do you think this 'ghost' is a SAKURA card?"

"I don't see why it'd be a SAKURA card," Raithe whispered back.

XXXXXX

"It must be a SAKURA card!" Kero exclaimed.

"I still don't see why you guys would think that," Raithe muttered as he took off his white blouse and tossed it on his bed.

"Well, since ghosts aren't real, what else would it be?" Raithe stopped digging through his drawer. "My point exactly," Kero said after Raithe didn't reply. "We'll go to the school tonight at look around,"

**RAITHE'S POV**

Well, somehow Kero convinced me to go to the school at ten o'clock at night, not sure how he did it, but he did, though it may have been something to do with his persistent whining. We met Lenny at the entrance, only to discover that he had created some sort of outfit for me to wear. The outfit was white pants and a long black blazer with blue trim and white gloves, my highlights were back to electric blue too match.

"Please tell me that you're not going to make a habit of making wear ridiculous outfits every time we go to capture a card." I grumbled as I came out from behind the tree.

"I can't make any promises," Lenny replied happily as he winked. He then took a picture of me. "It's going to be so fun painting pictures of these." I sighed. "You look so cool! Now if only we could do something about that pink staff…"

"You know, Sakura chan's friend made her dress up in weird outfits too," Kero said. He then drifted over to Lenny. "And sometimes gave me a little something to wear that would match her," He winked about ten times.

"I'll see what I can do," Lenny replied, winking many times in return. I slapped my forehead and slid my hand down to cover my eyes.

"Can we PLEASE just get this over with before someone sees us, more importantly, me!"

"Is he always this impatient?" Kero asked. Lenny nodded.

"Ooooh yah,"

Lenny and I slowly walked down the dark halls with Kerberos closely floating behind.

"It's kinda creepy at night when no one's here," Lenny said as he had his hands on my shoulders.

"You wimp," I replied.

"Shhhhh," Kero hissed. "Listen," Lenny and I did as we were told.

"I don't hear anything," Lenny whispered.

"Yah… no, wait," I tilted my head towards the window. "I hear… something,"

"But where's it coming from?" Kero inquired.

"What, I don't hear it,"

"Shh!" I snapped. Lenny glared at me. "It sounds like it's coming from the music room, c'mon!" I then took off down the hall, closely followed by Kero.

"But I don't even hear it!" Lenny cried as he ran after them.

**NORMAL**

Raithe stopped in front of the door to the music room, he could now clearly hear someone humming a song that sound familiar.

"That song sounds familiar," Raithe muttered.

"Well DUH!" Lenny hissed. "You play that song a million times a day,"

"Really?" Raithe asked. "But, if it's a SAKURA card, why would it be singing my song?"

"Hm, I wonder…" Kero muttered. "It must be the SONG card…"

"What does the song card do?" Raithe asked.

"When SONG hears a beautiful voice, or music, it usually commits it to memory, and sings it all the time."

"Well it makes sense, Raithe's playing is beautiful." Lenny commented.

"It's not that great," Raithe muttered. Lenny rolled his eyes.

"Well let's go!" He exclaimed as he jumped up.

"Wait!" Kero cried. Lenny thrust the door open. There was then a gust a wind, then silence. "Baka!" Kero cried as he slapped Lenny across the head. "The SONG is very shy!"

"Oh, my bad," Lenny replied as he rubbed the back of his head.

"I guess we should go find it," Raithe said dully.

"Hang on, Raithe. I have a better idea," Kero said.

Raithe took in a deep breath, and then slowly let it out. He lightly moved his fingers across the white ivory keys of the piano in the music room. It was only a baby grand, but still magnificent. He glanced over to where Lenny and Kero were sitting. Lenny gave him a thumbs.

Raithe took in another short breath as he brought is hands up, then brought them back down, his fingers each pressing different keys and precisely the right time in order to make a beautiful sound.

As his fingers skated across the keys, a bright glowing ball appeared near the open window as a girl humming the song Raithe was playing could be heard. Lenny sighed a happy sigh as he thought that this- Raithe playing the piano with someone humming along with him- was truly the most beautiful sound ever.

Then the SONG fully appeared. Song's visible form resembled a young girl wearing a blue and lavender dress and bluish-lavender headgear. The headgear resembled a treble clef, and the dress resembles the front of a string instrument. Her dress also has the 'F holes', which are long to look like the cello.

"Go Raithe," Kero hissed. Raithe grabbed the star staff that was sitting next to him on the bench.

"Return to the guise you were meant to be in, SAKURA card!" The SONG turned into a puff of pink smoke as it was then vacuumed into the glowing card that formed by the staff. The card then turned solid as Raithe caught it.

"Awesome!" Kero cried. Raithe stared at the SONG card for a moment. He then closed his eyes as he pulled down the lid over the keys.

"Well, time to go home," Lenny yawned as he stretched out his arms. Raithe and Lenny walked out into the hallways.

"That was a really nice piano," Raithe said as they walked.

"Yah, I heard they got it this year," Lenny replied. "But unfortunately you can only play it if you're in the music club."

The image several crushed cars that had collided with one another appeared in his head.

**RAITHE'S POV**

Yup, the image of crushed cars, the picture of my heart, or at least that's what my heart felt like.

"I'll tell you," Lenny continued. "That Kaito- sensei is really strict. But I also heard he's an amazing pianist and only gives lessons to people that he chooses, people who he says has 'natural talent.'" Lenny then looked at me with a grin on his face. "I bet anything he'd pick you." I sighed as I looked at the window at the full moon.

My fists clenched and unclenched, my fingers itched to play those beautiful ivory keys.

"_A slacker, completely athletically and academically inept… but a genius of music… the only thing you seemed passionate about was playing the piano, that you truly seemed to love it." _

_----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------_

_Next time: My parents go out of town for the day, so Lenny offers to help tend to the store with me, not that it's going to busy enough to need his help, but he'll keep me company. Unfortunately, things don't stay as calm as we would like when something keeps attacking the fishes in the fish tanks. My dad is so gonna kill me if the place gets flooded._

Authoress' note: Please review and no harsh flames, I will not update until I have at least 3 reviews.


	7. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

Raithe yawned as his cheek rested on the palm of his hand, his elbow on the front store counter. He was wearing dark black jeans and white t-shirt with a black apron. His jet black hair streaked with red.

_FLASHBACK_

_Raithe yawned as he came downstairs wearing his black pajama pants and a gray t-shirt. _

"_Oh, good morning Raithe," His mother said as she and his father were standing by the door. "I was just about to come get you." His father then opened the door, hurrying his mother out, and then looked back._

"_We're going out for the day, watch the store." He said, and then shut the door. A second later he opened the door walked to the window, and flipped around the sign so it now said 'OPEN' then went back out and closed the door. Raithe stared blankly at the door, barely awake. His hair was practically sticking straight up, his eyes gray half closed._

_As he heard the car engine start he walked over to the window and watched the car drive away. He stared out the window for a moment, and then it finally sunk in; his eyes immediately becoming alert._

"_Wait, what?!" He ran to the door and opened it, but his parents were already long gone._

END FLASHBACK

_Those jerks, _He thought to himself. It was now twelve o'clock; he'd been up 2 hours now, and not a single customer. Kero had eaten a huge slice of pie for breakfast, and was now sleeping it off. Suddenly the door burst open.

"I have come to relieve you!" Lenny exclaimed. Raithe didn't even flinch. As Lenny stood in front of the open door with his hands spread apart in the air and a huge smile on his face, Raithe slowly blinked, his eyes narrow and bored.

"Great, can you mop up the kitchen, 'k thanks." Lenny's arms dropped to his sides as he glared at his friend.

"Fine, Mr. Mchappy pants," He said as he walked past the counter and into the kitchen.

Lenny peered out onto the closed porch where there were several fish large fish tanks. He one of the tanks he could've swore he saw a tiny whirl pool, but after nothing happened for several moments, he ignored it.

Lenny had helped out at the store many times, so by now he knew how to do pretty much everything, heck, he could run the store by himself if he wanted too, and it certainly wasn't very busy. After he finished the kitchen, he briefly mopped the porch and the main room, and of course Raithe was in the same exact position he was in when Lenny first arrived, every once in a while he'd blink, that was it.

"Gosh you're stoic today." Lenny said. Raithe's head suddenly fell down onto the counter, startling Lenny.

"I HATE working at the store, especially on the only day I have absolutely no school, it's so boring, but I can't leave, I can't even read a book!" He said as his voice was muffled. Lenny blinked.

"Well, I'm glad to see you're alive at least." Raithe turned his head so he was now looking at the brown haired boy.

"What are you talking about?" He asked as he head was still on the counter.

"Well, you weren't even moving, so I was beginning to wonder whether or not you were alive." Lenny explained. Raithe blinked, and then turned his head so the front of his face was pressed against the top of the counter again. A sweat dropped rolled down the side of Lenny's head as he returned to the kitchen to put back the mop.

Lenny placed the mop back in the small closet. As he turned to leave, he glanced into the enclosed porch as he saw something moving.

XXXXXX

Raithe yawned for about the millionth time that morning. Not a single person had come in, except Lenny, but he was just there to help, not that he actually needed help.

"Raaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiiitttttttthhhhhheeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!" Lenny screamed as he ran into the room. "Raithe, Raithe, Raithe, Raithe," He said as he shook the black haired teen with one hand and pointed to the kitchen with the other.

"What?" Raithe asked in a bored monotone.

"Monster! Fish tank! Cometh!" He shrieked as he ran to the kitchen. Raithe blinked, but followed none the less. "Look!!!" Lenny shrieked as he pointed to one of the fish tanks.

"What?" Raithe asked. Lenny ran towards it and placed his hands on it as he looked inside.

"I don't understand, there was a miniature whirlpool or something, where'd it…" He trailed off. Raithe rubbed the back of his head.

"It was probably… your imagination, or something."

"But, but, but," Lenny whimpered with tearful eyes. "There was something in there!"

"Yes, there's fish in there,"

"No, something that wasn't fish,"

"If you say so," Raithe replied with a yawn as he walked back to the front room. Lenny glared at him.

"Sheesh, you're more a bore then usual today," He said as he walked after him. Raithe put his elbow on the counter and rested his head on his clenched fist.

"I'm tired Lenny, go wash some dishes."

"What am I your slave?" Lenny muttered to himself. "But why are you tired?" Raithe didn't answer. "Was it because, perhaps, you were dreaming of kissing Sara- chan?"

"No!" Raithe exclaimed as he stood up straighter, a mortified look on his face. Lenny snickered.

"Ohayo!" Kerberos said as he floated down the stairs.

Lenny waved. "Ohayo,"

"Oh, Lenny- kun is here," Kero said. Kero landed on the counter and smiled at Lenny. "Morning Lenny- kun," He then looked at Raithe. "Raithe no baka,"

Raithe flinched. "What?" He exclaimed. "Why did you call me that?"

"Because you're a baka," Kero replied with a smile still o his face. Lenny snickered. Raithe's eyes narrowed. "You know it's really lucky that your parents went out, now I can eat all the food I-" Kero suddenly froze.

"What's wrong?" Lenny inquired as he leaned down to look the small creature. Kero slowly turned to Raithe with an expression that made him shiver.

"BAKA!" Kero exclaimed as he jumped up and whacked Raithe over the head.

"Ow," Raithe whined as Lenny broke into hysterical laughter. "It wasn't that funny," Raithe said glaring at his friend. He then looked at Kero. "Why did you-"

"You can't even sense that there's a SAKURA card this close by??!!" Lenny stopped laughing as the two boys blinked.

"There's… a SAKURA card?" Raithe asked. Kero turned away with narrow eyes.

"Raithe no baka," He muttered. Kero then floated into the air and went towards the kitchen. "Quickly, it's this way!"

"Ah," Raithe pulled out the star necklace and held it in his hands. "Key of the star with powers burning bright reveal the staff and shine your light, Release!" Raithe grabbed the pink staff and ran into the kitchen where Kero and Lenny stood at the entrance to the porch.

"I told you there was something in the water," He said with a smirk, he then looked at the staff and covered his mouth to suppress his laughter. Raithe rolled his eyes.

"There was something in the water?" Kero asked as he looked around. "Perhaps it's the WATERY…" Lenny and Raithe looked at each other.

"WATERY…?" The both said in unison. Kero eyes all the fish tanks.

"I don't see anything… and I don't really sense it to be in here either…" He turned around and looked back into the kitchen as Raithe and Lenny did the same. "Maybe it's the SWEET!" He exclaimed with sparkly eyes.

"Hey, I think I'm starting to sense it," Raithe muttered. Suddenly he and Kero both froze.

"Nani?" Lenny asked as he looked at them.

"I… I think I know where the card is," Raithe said in a rather high pitched voice.

"Where, where?!" Lenny asked. They then heard a splash from behind them as Lenny also froze and his eyes became wide.

The three slowly turned their heads to look back. Lenny nervously laughed. "Wow…" He whispered.

There they saw a girl the resembled a blue mermaid with webbed fingers and large ears that appeared to be a cross between webbed flippers and pointed elf's ears. They couldn't see whether it had legs or not because the bottom half was surrounded by a pillar of water that came out of the fish tank.

"Hey, I was right," Kero said. "It was the WATERY."

"So," Raithe began. "What does the WATERY do?"

"Well, WATERY can dissolve itself, and it has a really bad temper."

"Bad temper?" Lenny squeaked. Kero nodded.

The WATERY's face suddenly became angrier then it already looked. It raised its arms as water rose up with it, and then thrust her arms towards them as the water also did. Before Raithe knew what had happened, he was surrounded by cold liquid rushing past him, pushing him back. He tried to breath but instead took in a huge gulp of water. He felt claustrophobic as he couldn't breathe. He then hit the wall in the front room as the water reseeded. Raithe remained plastered upside down with his back on the wall for a moment, but then fell forward, scratching his arm against some sort of hook as he fell onto his stomach.

Raithe could feel his body shaking as he kept his eyes closed and took in huge gulps of air. He could feel warm blood drip down his arm. He slowly opened his eyes as he could see that five inches or so of water covered the floor, fish flapping all around. Everything was soaked. A little ways away from him Lenny was getting up with Kero.

_I have to get up,_ He thought to himself, but his body was frozen as it hadn't fully recovered from what had happened.

"Raithe, you ok?" He heard Lenny say, but he could just barely see his feet running towards him as his eyes began to close.

_Raithe began to fall forward over a railing into the dark green ocean. "Raaaaaaiiithe!" He heard his mother call right before he hit the waves._

"Raithe!" Lenny shouted as the brown hair boy smacked him across the head. "Get a hold of yourself, man it's just a little water." Raithe's eyes shot open.

"The WATERY!" He began.

"Is right behind us," Lenny said as he smiled a terrified smile. Raithe looked back and sure enough, there it was, riding on a pillar of water. Raithe slowly stood and grabbed the star staff which was lying only a few inches away from him.

"Kero," Raithe began as Kero cautiously floated over to them. "How did that Sakura girl catch the WATERY?" Kero thought about it for a moment.

"Well… she was in an aquarium, and she ran to the kitchen and locked it in a giant freezer, but you'd need a really big freezer,"

Raithe smirked. "We have a really big freezer," He said. "I just wish that I were a faster runner," He took in a deep breath, and then ran right towards the WATERY. He quickly ran past it and into the kitchen, sliding a bit in the water as the WATERY quickly followed. Raithe ran back into the porch where the majority of the fish lay, most of them dead by now. Against the left wall was a giant metal door. He pulled on it as it slowly opened.

"Stupid heavy door," He muttered as he finally pulled it open just as WATERY came rushing through the door. Raithe then stepped in front of the freezer door as he shivered. "Ok you stupid card, come get me!" WATERY rushed towards him. Raithe quickly ducked as WATERY flew over him into the freezer.

Raithe then pushed against the door, leaving it only open a crack as his pulled out the WINDY.

"WINDY!" WINDY flew into the freezer, and then Raithe shut it all the way.

"Nice," Lenny said as he and Kero came into the room. "Use WINDY to hasten the time it takes WATERY to freeze."

"Sakura thought of that plan all by herself," Kero said, Raithe glared at him.

"As long as I catch the card, nothing else matters." After another moment, Raithe and Lenny pulled the freezer door open. WINDY flew out and returned to its card, in the center of the freezer was a completely frozen WATERY.

"Return to the guise you were meant to be in, SAKURA card!" Blue smoke flew out of the ice and into the glowing card forming in front of the star staff. The card then became solid as Raithe caught it. "Nice," He said as he admired the perfect ice sculpture of WATERY left in the freezer.

"Hey, you have five cards now, not too bad," Lenny said as he and Raithe walked back to the front room, Kero closely floating behind. "Ah, your arm is bleeding," Raithe looked down at his left arm as blood dripped down it and his fingers.

"Oh yah, I forgot,"

"How you forget about something like that?" Lenny exclaimed. "Raithe no baka,"

"Oh no, don't tell me you've picked that up too," Lenny smiled. Suddenly the front door opened as much of the water ran outside down the steps.

"Aw!" Raithe's mother exclaimed.

"What the," His father said. Lenny and Raithe looked at each other as Kero floated up stairs. "What happened?!" Raithe's father yelled as he came in, looking at all the fish and water on the floor.

"A water monster was in the fish tanks and used all the water to create a huge tidal wave," Lenny tried to explained. Raithe's parent's both stared at him as Raithe slapped his forehead.

XXXXXX

"I knew it was a bad idea to come today," Lenny sighed as he put another dead fish in a large bucket.

"I just hope I don't need stitches," Raithe muttered as he glanced down at his bandaged arm. "Mom said she's take me to the hospital later to check it out," He explained as he rested his chin on his hands that were folded across the top of the mop.

"You missed a spot," His father said as he was sitting in a chair reading the newspaper. "Even after this is all cleaned up, you are in big trouble," He said as he coldly looked at his son.

Raithe sighed as he began mopping again.

"Hey Raithe," Lenny whispered as he came over to him. "After, the whole tidal wave, you passed out for a minuet, why?" Raithe stopped.

"Er, don't worry about it," He said as he walked over to the window, Lenny staring at him curiously.

**RAITHE'S POV**

Lenny and I have always told each other our deepest darkest secrets, there's just one that I've never been able to tell him, I dunno why, I just never could. But maybe I'll tell him one day.

_Next time: People at my school are really superstitious; I mean first they think there's a ghost, and now some sort of phantom. Of course Lenny and Kero think it's a SAKURA card. I don't see why whenever something weird happens they automatically think it's a SAKURA card; well I guess a SAKURA card would be the only semi logical explanation for anything._

Authoress' note: Alright, thank you for reading, I will not update until I have at least 3 reviews. No harsh flames please.


	8. Chapter 7

Authoress's note: Hey, sorry it took so long for me to update, but I've been pretty busy.

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Chapter 7

Raithe's eyes slightly sparkled as his chin rested on the palm of his hand, his elbow resting on his desk.

**RAITHE'S POV**

_Sara looks so cute when she answers math questions_. I thought as I watched her write out the answer to a math equation on the black board. As she finished she turned around, smiling her cute smile … at Haku… You know, I really don't what she sees in him; yah, he's athletic, tall, slender, and I suppose he's rather pretty- I don't know, I don't look at other guys like that- but he's an idiot, more so thank I am, I mean, I didn't get held back in fourth grade like he did.

Hm, I suppose I maybe should've mentioned that sooner… ah well, Haku got held back in fourth grade, which is why he's in tenth grade even though he's sixteen and has his license, lucky guy.

**NORMAL**

Suddenly Raithe's arm was knocked out from under him and his hand fell flat onto the desk. The room erupted into laughter at this. "Mr. Imahara," Yu sensei said as Raithe lifted his head. "Please complete the equation on the board. Raithe looked at the board as there was a long algebra equation. He gulped, then got up and walked to the front.

Raithe picked up the piece of chalk and stared at the white numbers and letters.

**RAITHE'S POV**

Why are there letters in math anyways? I never understood that. Why do I have to take math anyways? It's not as though I'm going to pursue a career involving math or something, thought I suppose it'd be helpful since I'm destined to work at a fish store for the rest of my life and I'll be working a cash register.

**NORMAL**

"Any problem, Mr. Imahara?" Yu sensei asked as he crossed his arms and leaned against the desk.

"Huh? Oh, no, no, no, not at all," Raithe replied as snickers could be heard.

"Then answer the equation,"

"Um… can I have lifeline?" Raithe asked, half jokingly, half entirely serious. Yu sensei sighed.

"Go sit down," He said. Raithe put the chalk, as he walked back to his desk; Haku stuck his foot out, tripping him. The room once again erupted in laughter. Raithe stood up, scowling with a red mark on his forehead. He sat down in his chair and sulked; out of the corner of his eye saw Lenny looking at him sympathetically.

"Alright, settle down," Yu sensei said loudly, silencing the class. "Mr. Wanderheim, you seem like a very bright student," He walked over to his desk and pulled out several sheets of paper stapled together and placed them on Haku's desk. "Please complete all the problems and turn them into me tomorrow morning." Haku grumbled as people now snickered at him.

**RAITHE'S POV**

Ok, here's the deal: When you do something in Yu sensei's class, like tripping someone on purpose, instead of getting detention or whatever, he makes you do these really hard algebraic equations, fortunately I haven't had to do any… yet, but I've seen Lenny's. And no two pages are in any similar, so if you and your buddy get in trouble, you can't copy off each other.

**NORMAL**

"Miss Hisashi, would you like to do another problem?" Yu sensei asked. Sara smiled and nodded as she quickly got up.

XXXXXX

"Well, that was a humiliating math class," Lenny said as Raithe put on his sneakers. "Sara probably thinks you're a total loser now," Raithe glared at him.

"Thanks,"

"Any time, pal, any time," Lenny replied as he patted Raithe's back. As Raithe straightened up, Lenny cringed. "Speaking of Sara…" As Raithe looked over Sara was suddenly in front of him, a sympathetic smile on her face.

"Imahara- san, I'm really sorry about Haku,"

"You have no reason to apologize to me; it wasn't your fault, and what's with the 'Imahara-san'? We're close friends," Sara's expression became downcast as she clutched her right arm with her left hand. Raithe's face became solemn as Lenny gave him the 'I told you so' look. "Sara- chan,"

"Haku- san is very special to me," Sara began as she placed her hand on her heart.

"So then what am I, chopped liver?"

"When you Raithe- Kun, you might s well be," Lenny commented, which was replied with a fierce glare from Raithe. "I'm gonna go… go," Lenny said as he tried to avoid Raithe's gaze.

"Raithe- kun," Sara said softly with a pained expression.

"No, it's ok, I get it." Raithe interrupted. "You've worked really hard to move away from the loser clique, so why would you ruin that by continuing to be friends with me, especially since Haku, the guy you've liked since forever, is finally starting to notice you." Raithe picked up his school bag as he turned away.

"Raithe- kun," Sara called. Raithe turned back, and was a bit surprised to see that it looked as though Sara were about to cry. "Do you think I'm… shallow?" Raithe gritted his teeth.

**RAITHE'S POV**

How the heck am I to respond to this? Of course I don't think she's shallow, she just… kinda… really hurt me, that's all. But I can't tell her that. "That's… not for me to decide," Ok, not sure if that sounded profound or stupid… oh gosh, what if she thinks I do think she's shallow. Should I say something, no, that would just defeat the purpose of me saying that stupid thing I just said.

**NORMAL**

"Hey," Lenny said as he put his hand on Raithe's should.

"Gah!" Raithe's heart skipped a beat as it was now pounding fast. "L- Lenny… don't startle me!"

"Sorry, sorry. Just thought I'd tell you that Hisami- san left and now you're just standing here and you look like a retard with your eyes closed and your thumb and index finger on your chin as though you're in deep thought." Raithe slowly turned his head, once again glaring at his best friend. "But that's just what I thought," He said quickly.

XXXXXXX

Raithe miserably picked at his grilled salmon as he sat at the kitchen table with his parents.

"Is something wrong, darling?" His mother asked with a concerned expression.

"N- No, nothing's wrong" Raithe replied. His mother sat back as she decided he didn't sound convincing at all.

"How's Lenny-kun and Sara- chan?" She asked.

"Lenny- kun is fine,"

"What about Sara- chan?" Raithe nearly choked on his saliva.

"I, er, don't really talk to Sara- chan anymore…"

His mother looked worriedly at his father, who merely shrugged.

XXXXXX

Raithe put his normal shoes in his small locker. Surprisingly Lenny was nowhere to be seen.

"Hey, did you hear?" Some person was saying to his friend a few feet away. "Some thing happened in the music room."

"Like what?"

"I dunno, but I'm gonna go check it out!" And with that the two boys ran off.

_The music room?_ Raithe checked the watch on his wrist. _I still have a few more minuets before class._

As Raithe approached the music room he saw a group of people looking in the open door, one of the people was Lenny.

"Lenny," He called out as he walked over. Lenny gasped.

"Raithe, you shouldn't be here," Raithe raised and eyebrow.

"Why not? I heard something happened," He began to push his way through the crowd.

"Wait! Don't, it's too scary-"

Raithe froze when he looked in the room. Right in front was a flipped over and crushed baby grand piano. The keys were scattered all around it as the wires were sticking out of it. He suddenly felt light headed.

"I told you," He heard Lenny say. Everything suddenly went dark. He could faintly hear people calling his name around him, then silence.

Raithe groaned as his hand fell onto his forehead, where there was a damp cloth. His head was throbbing as he could hear faint voices. He opened his left eye a crack and saw a white ceiling, and then a smiling face appeared over him.

"You're awake!" Lenny exclaimed. Raithe stared at him blankly.

"Your voice is loud," He said.

"Sorry," Lenny replied in the exact same tone. "But are you ok?"

"Uh, I guess… what happened?"

"You fainted at the sight of the tipped over and broken piano." Suddenly that alful image filled his mind.

"The image… it burns," He whispered.

Lenny rolled his eyes. "You are so weird when it comes to pianos." He commented. Raithe suddenly sat up, the dizziness leaving him.

He then clenched his fists as fire filled his eyes. "When I find out who did this,"

"You'll what? Beat him up with your string-bean arms?" Raithe glared at him, then something occurred to him.

"I bet it was Haku!" He exclaimed as fire returned to his eyes. He went to jump of the infirmary bed, when a sturdy hand pushed him back.

"Don't even think about it," The nurse, a black haired woman with a large build, said. "You probably won't be leaving here for the entire day. I'll call your parents at the end of the day to pick you up."

Raithe blinked. "Well then why don't you just call them now?!" But she had already left. "Worse nurse ever," He muttered.

"Well, I gotta get to class. I'll be sure to give you your home work." And with that Lenny ran out of the room.

Hours passed as the nurse came in every once in a while, as did Lenny, dropping off stacks of paper that were his homework. Eventually he fell asleep.

The nurse unlocked her front door and stepped in as a strange feeling came over. "Why do I feel like I forgot something?" She pondered it for a moment, then shrugged and decided to ignore it.

Raithe yawned as he awoke from his nap. _Well, the nurse should be calling my parents soon,_ As his eyes fully adjusted, he realized that the room was dark. Raithe blinked. Had there been a thunder storm? maybe a fuse had been blown? Raithe's eyes narrowed as he realized he heard no people. He quickly sat up and looked around. He then looked at his wrist watch, his jaw dropped.

"Eight o'clock?!"

**RAITHE'S POV**

Well, something tells me I've been forgotten. My parents are going to kill me. Well, I suppose I should go home,

**NORMAL**

Raithe looked over at the giant stack of homework as his eyes became dots and then turned away.

**RAITHE'S POV**

I'll just leave that there I guess.

**NORMAL**

Raithe walked down the dark halls of the deserted school. He hadn't remembered it being so creepy when he caught The SONG. As Raithe walked passed the many class rooms, he heard a loud crash.

"What the…" He muttered as he froze for a moment, then rant towards the crash. He looked into the class room that he thought the crash came from, and sure enough, he was right. In the center of the room all the desks were stacked up in a tower. He stared at it for a moment.

_Well it at least it wasn't a piano_. He thought as he stared at the tower. Raithe looked around. _So than that heinous piano destroyer/ vandalizer must be her. _Raithe peered a bit into the room, but didn't see anyone, so continued down the hall, looking into each room.

As he walked he got a sudden chill, a mix between the kind he got when there was a SAKURA card nearby, and when someone was standing behind him. As he walked passed several windows, he glanced back, just enough to see if there was anyone following him, but the only thing behind him was his shadow, when suddenly that disappeared.

Raithe's eyes became wide as he stared at the floor where his shadow once was, then he slowly turned around, only to see figure in a black cloak and hood resembling the Grim Reaper, minus the scythe. The creature was significantly taller than Raithe. Raithe could feel his jaw dropping as his eyes were dots. He smiled a terrified, crooked smile as he laughed nervously, and then stopped as the seemingly faceless creature didn't move.

Raithe slowly turned around, waited for a moment, and then ran away as fast as he could.

_It's just a SAKURA card, just a SAKURA card, friendly, nice, _He then remembered the WATERY and put his hand on the scar on his arm. He looked back, and too his horror saw that the creature was chasing after him.

"Crap!" Raithe pulled the star necklace out from his pocket and held it in his hand. "The key which hides powers of the stars, Sow your true form before me! I, Raithe command you under our contract, Release!" The pink staffed formed ahead oh him as he was still running. He then caught it, and swiftly turned a corner and leaned against the wall, hoping the shadow thing, which he was assuming it was a SAKURA card, would continue to go straight.

Raithe panted heavily as he tried to catch his breath. He suddenly froze as he realized the card was standing right next to him.

XXXXXXXX

Sara slowed her run to a light jog as she came to the track field. She stopped as she looked at her wrist watch and saw that it was 8:20 pm. "I can't believe I left to science book here," She muttered as she slowly began to walk towards the gym entrance, where she had left her book.

Her long red hair was pulled back in a loose pony tail as she wore navy sweat shorts and gray sweater and sneakers. She stopped walking as the gym door suddenly burst open, and Raithe ran out screaming.

"Raithe- kun?" She asked as her eyes followed him. _I didn't know he was that fast, _

Raithe stopped running and stared at her. "Eh, Sara- chan!" He called from across the field. "Get out of here! It's dangerous!"

Sara cocked her head to the side. "Dangerous, what are you," She suddenly froze as she felt something cold come over her. She looked around her and saw that a dark fog had completely covered her feet to the point where she couldn't even see them, and the fog was working its way up.

She bit her lip as she wanted to scream, but her voice seemed non existent. All she could do was watch the black fog cover her body, soon in was past her waist.

Raithe stared in horror as Sara slowly disappeared. He wanted to run over and pull her away from the darkness, but his legs wouldn't move. _Move you idiot! _The darkness was up to her neck now. _MOVE!_ Before he knew what was happening, he was running towards her.

He extended his arm to grab her, pull her away from the darkness. His hand ran through the shadow as it engulfed the rest of her, until she was completely gone. Raithe stood there, frozen, feeling around him, but Sara was no where around, and she was gone, most likely forever. Raithe looked down at his hands as his eyes were wide; he wanted to fall to the ground and just cry. "If… if I had just moved… sooner…" He clenched his fists as the SAKURA card appeared behind him, but it didn't surprise him this time, he could clearly sense its presence, as he remembered one of the cards Kero had mentioned to him.

He pulled out WINDY and threw it into the air a bit then extended his staff. "WINDY! Capture SHADOW with a biding chain, release!" WINDY soared out of the card and around SHADOW.

It flew around the new SAKURA card many times, then a chain tightened around it, but SHADOW dispersed its self, escaping the wind chain. Raithe bit his lip and cursed under his breath. He then remembered what Kero said. "SHADOW can touch us, but we can't touch it," Raithe muttered. A smile then spread across his lips as he got an idea.

WINDY returned to its card as Raithe then pulled out DASH. "DASH! Grant me your powers of incredible, release!" DASH jumped out of its card, then into Raithe as his eyes closed.

Raithe opened his eyes as he smirked; he then set off running at an incredible speed. _It's really quite nice thinking that I'm faster than Haku right now. _He thought. He looked back and could just barely see SHADOW chasing after him. _It's fast, _He looked back ahead of him, the last thing he wanted was to bang into a door or wall when going this fast.

Raithe ran into a class room and stopped by the door. A moment later SHADOW came in after him. As it stood in the center of the room, Raithe flipped on the lights. SHADOW screamed in agony as the shadows it had collected returned to their original owners. Raithe smiled as he shadow also returned to him.

"WINDY! Capture SHADOW with a binding chain, release!" WINDY once again flew out of its card and wrapped a wind chain around SHADOW, this time holding it. "Return to the guise you were meant to be in, SAKURA card!" SHADOW turned into dark smoke as it was vacuumed into the glowing card in front of the star staff.

The card turned a solid pink as Raithe caught it, the word SHADOW at the bottom. Raithe put the card in his back pocket and looked around the room, and was shocked to see Sara lying in the center.

"Sara!" He quickly ran over to her at his normal speed and knelt by her, putting his hand behind her head. The red head groaned as her eyes fluttered open.

"Rai," She began as Raithe smiled. "Imahara- san?" His happy mood was ruined. "Where are we?" She groaned as she slowly sat up, what happened?"

"Ah, you tripped and hit you head."

"Really…?" She was totally out of it. She covered her eyes as she rested her head on her knee. "I had the weirdest dream; We were outside, and you were screaming, and carrying… a pink staff…" She looked at him weirdly.

"Wha-" Raithe put his hand on the back of his head as a sweat drop rolled down his head. "Th- that's ridiculous," He laughed nervously. _Sara can not know about this no matter what._

"Why are we in the science lab?" She asked.

"OH, I was looking for… ice… for your head…"

Sara raised an eyebrow. "In the science lab on the third floor?" She asked. Raithe blinked.

"Yah…"

XXXXXXX

"You sure you don't want me to walk you home?" Raithe asked as he and Sara were outside.

"Yah, my parents are probably worried, but yours are probably more worried than mine," Raithe cringed.

_Oh yah… _"You sure, there could be perverts," Sara giggled.

"I think I'll be ok," She smiled at him, and then the smile turned to sadness. "Raithe- kun, about this morning,"

"Ah, don't worry about it," Raithe said quickly. He put his hand on her shoulder. "You do what you have to do," He said softly as he smiled. Sara smiled back him.

"You're a good friend, even though I'm being the worst friend ever,"

"Seriously, don't worry about," There was an awkward silence. "Well," Raithe said loudly. "I'll see you tomorrow,"

Raithe shoved his hands in his pocket as he walked home, and then looked up at the moon. _Tomorrow will be a full a moon_ He thought. _Good things usually happen on full moons, right?_

XXXXXXXX

Haku opened the refrigerator door and pulled out a bottle of water as he had on a white muscle shirt and black sweat pants and a white sweaty towel around his neck. He opened the bottle and took a long drink when the phone rang.

"Hello?" He said into the receiver.

"You thought you'd get away with your crime, didn't you?" A cold voice replied. Haku froze. "Well, I'm just calling to give you a message even an idiot like you can understand. Run and hide, Haku Wanderheim, run and hide, because I'm coming to Japan to reclaim what's mine. So I dare you to try running away, flee the country if you must, but just so you know, where ever you go I will find you,"

Haku stood ahead of him, unable to speak. "Well, tootles,"

"W- wait, Rein!" He heard a click on the other end. Haku placed the phone down, then leaned against the wall, his eyes wide with fear.

"Master Haku?" An elderly man said as he entered the room.

"She's going to kill me," Haku whispered.

"Pardon? Who's going to kill you?" The man asked as he walked forward, now very worried.

Haku slid down the wall as he looked out the kitchen window. "She's going to kill me,"

_Next time: While I'm out doing my job catching SAKURA cards, some strange girl appears out of no where defeats the card, and then once I seal it away, it goes to her! Who the heck is she?_

Authoress' note: Thank you for reading, please review and no harsh flames. I will not update until I have at least 3 reviews.


	9. Chapter 8

Authoress' note: Ok, sorry it took so long to update, lot of school and stuff.

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Chapter 8:

Raithe ran through the dark streets of the city, breathing heavily, the pink star staff in his hand. He hadn't had enough time to get his skateboard.

**RAITHE'S POV**

Ok, may or may not be wondering why I'm running through the city at nine o'clock at night. Well, it all started when mother discovered we were out of bread, so in order for me to have my toast tomorrow morning, she made me go out and buy some more. On the way home, some giant blue energy tiger thing came and almost electrocuted me, but instead only got the bread… so now I have to go buy more. Anyways, I soon realized that it was a SAKURA card, so here I am, chasing it, or more, running in the direction I think it went because I have no idea where it is.

**Normal**

Raithe stopped running as he heard a sound of great agony, like a beast crying. "The SAKURA card," He muttered as he looked around, trying to find the source of the howling. He finally figured that it was on one of the building roofs. Finding a later, he climbed up to the roof, only to find the SAKURA card lying on the roof, arrows all through its body.

"What the," He muttered as he stared at the creature.

**RAITHE'S POV**

Ok, I'll admit that right now I'm a little ticked off at the SAKURA cards,

_FLASHBACK_

_Raithe slammed open his bed room door as he father stilled yelled at him for being so late._

"_Where have you been?" Kero asked as he sat on the bed. "I a SAKURA card," Raithe tossed the SHADOW card down on the bed, still scowling. "Haaaaaaaaaa, the SHADOW!"_

"_I quit," Raithe said as he tossed the necklace onto the bed next to Kero. The yellow creature stared at him._

"_Wha-"_

"_I'm done, I quit being the cardcaptor," Raithe continued as he took off his dark green blazer and threw on a pile of clothes in his closet. _

"_You can't quit," Kero protested._

"_Those cards are dangerous!" Raithe yelled at him. "That…" He pointed at the SHADOW card. "That __thing __almost killed Sara!" Kero blinked. _

"_Raithe no baka," Kero said as he shook his head. "The SHADOW wasn't going to hurt her, it was just playing,"_

_Raithe stared at him for a moment then clenched his fists. "Playing?!" He hollered. "Then what about WATERY?!" He stripped off his shirt and pointed to the bandage around his arm. "So then WATERY was just 'playing' when she nearly drowned me and Lenny and you!?" Kero closed his eyes as he folded his arms._

"_Sometimes they do get a bit out of hand," _

"_Out of…" Raithe trailed off. He slightly smiled as he shook his head. "No, no, Kerberos, I'm done, go find yourself a new cardcaptor, I'm not doing it anymore." _

"_Impossible. Sakura-chan most likely looked into the future and saw that you would be the next cardcaptor, this is your destiny, Raithe."_

"_I don't care about any destiny crap! How many times to I have to say it before you get it?!" Kero floated up to the teen and looked at him._

"_You do realize that if you don't capture the cards, then they'll roam freely around the city and may actually hurt someone, like Sara- chan," Raithe narrowed his eyes as Kero fiercely stared him down. Raithe finally sighed, giving in to Kero._

ENDFLASHBACK

Ok, so a lotta ticked of at the cards, but despite that I couldn't help but feel a bit of pity on this card. Who could've done this?

**NORMAL**

"Seal it!" Someone suddenly called, bringing Raithe out of his day dream. He looked around for the source of the voice. "If you pity the THUNDER, then seal it and end its misery,"

"Ah, right," Raithe said as he brought up the staff and pointed it at what he now knew to be the THUNDER card. "Return to the guise you were meant to be in, SAKURA card!" The THUNDER turned into blue smoke as it was vacuumed into the translucent glowing card forming in front of the staff. As it turned a solid pink, Raithe went to catch it, but in stead of easily falling into his hand, it flew into the air.

"H- hey!" He called as he ran after it, trying to grab it, when suddenly it landed in some one else's hand. Raithe looked up to see a shadow figure standing on the roof above him in front of the full moon. He couldn't see any facial features, but due to the long blowing hair and hour glass shaped figure and it appeared that the person was wearing some sort of short dress with bell sleeves, Raithe could safely assume it was a girl.

In her hand he assumed was a bow. She stared at him for a moment with piercing green eyes as Raithe stared back at her.

"Who," The girl suddenly jumped up into the air and did a back flip off the building. "Hey!" Raithe called. He ran over to the ladder and quickly climbed down. He ran down the alley, but she was no where to be seen. Raithe stood there, dumb founded as the wind blew his hair. "Who was that?" He muttered as the staff turned back into a necklace.

XXXXXXXX

"You saw… a girl?" Lenny asked the next at school as they walked to their homeroom class.

"Yes," Raithe replied for the millionth time.

Lenny scratched his chin as he looked ahead, then back at Raithe. "A hot girl?" He asked slapped his forehead.

"I told you, I couldn't see her face, just her eyes,"

"What were her eyes like?" Raithe stopped as he thought back.

"Cold, serious, maybe angry," Lenny raised an eyebrow. "It looked like she was glaring at me," Raithe replied with a shrug. They got into the room and sat in their seats, Raithe immediately went into his normal position, right elbow on the desk, and head in his hand as he looked out the window.

"Alright class," The homeroom teacher, Mr. Yanagawa, said as he came in. "Today an exchange student from Hong Kong will be joining us," Raithe, mildly interested, glanced over as the student came in. His jaw dropped as he became totally unaware of anything else. Suddenly the room seemed to be tilting a bit, then THUD. Raithe was on the floor.

Everyone looked at him. "Is there a problem Mr. Imahara?" The teacher asked.

"N- No, no, no problem sensei," He replied as he got back in his chair.

"I think he got bitten by the love bug," Some of the girls muttered.

"Anyways," Mr. Yanagawa said. "This is our new student." He indicated to the girl standing in front of the class. She had long black hair with bangs covering her right eye as she had dark green eyes. She was wearing the school uniform, a short green plaid pleated skirt with the dark navy blazer. She stared at the class for a long while as no one spoke, only an occasional cough. "Wouldn't you like to introduce yourself?" The teacher asked.

"No," She replied quickly in a monotone, her voice about as cold sounding as her eyes looked. As she walked forward Haku quickly stood and grabbed her shoulders and turned her towards the class.

"This is my cousin, Rein," There were a few gasps that filled the room as girls whispered to each other about want to befriend her, obviously just to get c lose to Haku. "She's not a very nice person," Haku started to say in an apologetic way, when Rein kicked him in the shins.

All the girls gasped loudly as the teen stumbled back to his seat, pure pain in his eyes.

Rein looked at him coldly, and then slightly smirked. "O- ok," Mr. Yanagawa said. "Your seat is there," He said. Raithe blinked as he though the teacher was pointing at him, then he slowly turned around and saw there was an empty desk behind him. Raithe gulped as he looked forward, Rein was glaring at him.

Rein silently walked to her seat and sat down behind Raithe. Raithe had a very awkward feeling; he turned around and saw Rein still glaring at him with her cold, green piercing eyes, Raithe quickly turned back.

"Psst, Lenny," Raithe hissed as he put his hand to his mouth so the girl couldn't read his lips. "I think that's the girl from last night,"

Lenny looked at him. "You mean the one who got the card?" Raithe nodded. "But then that would mean she has magical power,"

"This makes sense since she's Haku's cousin and Haku was the one who had the SAKURA book in the first place."

Lenny looked at him, then at the girl who was still glaring at Raithe, then at Haku who was rubbing his shin. "Then that would mean she's here to beat you up because you stole their book," Lenny said rather quickly as he then straightened up and looked away from Raithe, who looked at him weirdly. Lenny then leaned back over. "Just so you know, if that scary tries to kill you, I don't know you at all, just so we're clear."

Raithe rolled his eyes as he went back into his usual position. _What was I thinking, there's no way it's the girl from, last night,_ In the reflection of the window, he could see Rein's cold eyes glaring at the back of his head, then remembered the girl from last night. _Or it could be the same person. _

"I know it's her," Raithe said as he finished putting on his normal shoes as he and Lenny prepared to go home.

"And I still think you're crazy, how would Haku's cousin be involved in the SAKURA cards?"

"I told you, I got the book from Haku in the first place," Raithe hissed as he walked towards the door. "I," Suddenly something ran into him. "What the,"

"Raithe you jerk, you just walked into that poor girl," Lenny said. Raithe looked down and saw a girl about a head shorter than him. She had long silver hair and was rubbing her head.

"Er, sorry, I didn't," The girl looked up at him with big light brown eyes. She quickly bowed, muttered something, and ran away. Raithe blinked.

"And now you scare girls away, niiiiiiice," Lenny said as he crossed his arms. Raithe glared at him, and then looked back at the running girl.

"I wonder who that girl was, I've never seen her before," Raithe said. "But she's wearing the school uniform so she must come here,"

"Oh well, I've gotta get home," Lenny said as he grabbed his bike. "Oh yah, call me if a SAKURA card is activated,"

"Why?"

"Because my mom designed some new outfits and I want you to try them on, plus I need inspiration for a painting," Raithe opened his mouth to protest as Lenny smiled. "K, thanks,"

XXXXXXX

"Hm," Kero said as he floated a few inches above Raithe's bed, wondering about this new girl at school. "That is a possibility… I wonder… what's the girl's last name?" Raithe shrugged as he unbuttoned his white shirt and tossed it in the closet. He then went to his dresser and began to dig around for a shirt.

"I don't think it was ever said," He replied.

"Didn't her full name to the class or to anyone she met?" Kero exclaimed.

"Nope," Raithe replied as he pulled out a black short sleeved shirt with a button collar, he then but on gray jeans with holes in the knees. Then he walked over to his closet and pulled out a red coat that went to his thighs and looked as though the bottom edges were burned. The sleeves went to his elbows. The coat didn't have a zipper or buttons, so just stayed open and had a dark fiery pattern on it. He then picked up a necklace with very thin ebony black piano keys on it and put it around his neck.

"You wear weird clothes," Kero muttered as he raised an eyebrow. Raithe shrugged as he put on red fingerless gloves that only went around his middle finger. He then walked over and collapsed onto his bed. As he stared at the ceil he held his hands up and clenched and unclenched his fists.

"My hands itch," He muttered.

"Then itch them," Kero said. Raithe turned his head and looked at the plush toy looking creature.

"Kero no baka," He said. Kero scowled, feeling insulted. "It isn't an itch like on your arm or your neck where you just scratch it." He then looked back at his hands. "This can only be cured by playing the piano," He said longingly.

"Raithe, dinner's ready!" His mother called.

"'K," Raithe replied as he sat up. "I'll see you later,"

"Bring me back some desert," Kero called. Raithe looked back at him as he had his and on the door knob.

"I'll see what I can do," He replied.

Kero hovered above Raithe's bed as he had his eyes closed and his arms crossed. Suddenly he sensed a large amount of energy somewhere in the city. "A SAKURA card!" He exclaimed. "But Raithe no baka is eating dinner, and with that other person out there…" He looked around the room as his eyes fell on the lamp on the table next to Raithe's bed.

"So how was school today?" Raithe's mom asked.

"School," Raithe replied as he ate his fish. His parents sighed.

"What did you do at school?" She tried asking.

"School," Raithe said, looking at her with this 'well duh, what else are we supposed to do at school?' look. Suddenly they all heard a crash.

"What was that?" Mr. Imahara inquired.

"Something outside," Raithe suggested. They then heard a loud thump.

"It sounds like it's coming from your room," Raithe looked at her, then at the stairs that he could see from his seat at the kitchen.

"Kero," He muttered.

"What was that?" His father asked.

"I left the window open, I'm sure it's just some stupid bird or something," Raithe said, half laughing, as he got up and ran up stairs. "Kero!" He exclaimed as he slammed the door open. On the floor was a broken lamp and the table, Kero was hovering over them. "What are you-"

"Look out your window," Kero said calmly. Raithe glared at him as he stomped over to the window and stuck his head out. A huge gust of wind shot directly at his face. Raithe pulled his head back inside as his hair was sticking up in strange places.

"What is that?" He asked.

"A SAKURA card, the FLY to be exact," Kero replied.

"FLY?"

"Are you tired of having to run after cards?"

"Yes,"

"Then you'll want that card more than any other,"

XXXXXXXXXXX

"Where's the SAKURA cad?" Lenny asked as he pulled up on his bike. Raithe pointed to the giant bird flying over the city. "And your just letting it do that… why?"

"Because I had to wait for you to get here," Raithe replied coldly.

"Well, it'll all be worth it," He then pulled something out of his back pack. "Behold!" Raithe stared at it. It was some sort of back outfit with a cloak and lots of belts and buckles. Lenny looked at what Raithe was wearing, then at what he was holding, and then back at Raithe, and threw the outfit over his shoulder. "Forget that thing; you're already wearing something weird enough for me to be inspired from.

Raithe sighed. "Can we just go catch the card now," He then pulled out the star necklace and held it in his hand. "The key which hides powers of the stars, Sow your true form before me! I, Raithe command you under our contract, Release!" Raithe grabbed the star staff after it was done transforming.

"I still can't get over how ridiculous that thing looks," Lenny commented as he pointed at the staff. Raithe glared at him with icy blue eyes.

"Can we go now!?"

Raithe climbed up onto the top of a building via a later, followed by Lenny and Kero who just floated up next to him. "Ok, where is it?" Raithe asked more to himself than the others.

"Beats me," Lenny said as he put his hands on his knees and breathed heavily. "Can we not run anymore?"

"If we don't run we'll never catch it," Raithe told him as he walked over to the edge of the building, next to him was the brick wall of the building next to the they were on which was significantly taller.

He then turned to his left, when suddenly a loud 'swish' noise was heard.

"What was that?" Lenny asked. He then looked over at Raithe and nearly fainted. An arrow was sticking right the middle of his throat as he stood pinned against the wall, his eyes wide. "R- Raithe! No!!"

"Raithe no baka," Kero muttered as he didn't want to believe what he was seeing.

"Gah," Raithe suddenly said. He looked over and saw an arrow inches away from going through his neck on the right said. "Gah!" He jumped over.

"Raithe, you're alive!" Lenny exclaimed as he hugged his best friend.

"Yah, just barely," He replied as he rubbed his neck where it had been slightly cut by the arrow head.

"Darn," A voice suddenly said. The three looked up at the building ahead of them and saw a girlish figure with cold green eyes. She then stepped forward, showing that she was wearing a red dress with long bell sleeves and a yellow tube top over it and yellow leggings that went down to her knees and red flat boots.

In her hand was a bow. A brown leather strap went across her shoulder and diagonally down her front as he held a cylinder for arrows on her hip. She had long black hair that was blowing in the wind and cold green eyes.

Raithe and Lenny's jaw dropped. "I missed," She finished.

"Missed?!" Lenny exclaimed. "You could've killed him!" She smirked coldly.

"I think that was the point," Raithe whispered. He then looked back at her. "I knew that was you last night, Rein," Her eyes narrowed as her smirk widened.

"What's going?" Haku asked as he suddenly appeared behind the girl. He was wearing a green cloak with gold edges over a white shirt. On the green was the yin/yang symbol as he had on white pants and green flat shoes. Around his waist was a gold belt and brown sword scabbard.

"I knew it," Raithe said. Haku blinked as he looked at him.

"You!" He hollered. "You're the one who stole the book from me!" Rein elbowed him hard in the stomach.

"Just remember who stole it first from the original owner." She cast him a cold glance as he back away. "Well, Imahara- san, I was wondering when we'd really get to meet face to face, though I wasn't expecting it to be so soon,"

Kero narrowed his eyes as he looked at the girl. "What's your name?" He asked.

The girl looked at him for a moment, and then smirked. "Well, if it isn't Kerberos, guardian of the seal. You sure have picked a lousy candidate to be the cardcaptor,"

"Candidate?" Lenny asked. "I thought he was the cardcaptor," Raithe looked at Kero with an equally confused look, but Kero ignored them both.

"Fine, my name is Rein Li,"

"I knew it!" Kero exclaimed. "You're just like that kid, always interfering with the cardcaptor," Something then occurred to him. "Wait, if you're a Li, then you must know that kid, er, Syaoran, and Sakura- chan too!"

Rein blinked. "Sakura?"

"Yes, do you know where she is?" The girl stared at him for a moment, then slightly smirked.

"Look, there's no easy way to say it, so I just will. She's dead." Kero suddenly felt like he had been hit over the head with something.

"D- dead…?But… how, when?"

Rein sighed. "Old age, over a hundred years ago, Syaoran and their kids too," Kero looked down at the ground as he tried to take everything in. "You see, I am their great, great grand daughter,"

"Then what about Haku?" Lenny asked. Rein chuckled as Haku turned away.

"That," Suddenly the FLY flew up into the air and directly over them. "Is a story for another time," She said as she smirked. She then jumped into the air and flipped right over them, grabbing a bar that was sticking out of a wall, swung her self up and onto the roof, running towards the FLY.

Haku then jumped after her, landing on the bar and jumping onto the roof. Lenny and Raithe stood there with their mouths open. "Did they just jump… from there," Lenny pointed to where they had been. "To there?"

"Well?" Kero began as he came behind the two. "Go after them!" Raithe gritted his teeth. He then ran towards the wall with the pole in it, jumped up, grabbed the pole, the kicked his feet all around as he struggled to swing himself up.

Lenny then ran forward, grabbed onto Raithe's legs in an attempt to climb up, but just pulled them both down. Kero slapped his forehead as the two lay on the ground with swirly eyes. "Bakas," He muttered.

**TEN MINUETS LATER**

Kero pulled Lenny up by his hair and dropped him on the roof next to Raithe. "Finally, now let's go! I bet those two have already defeated it and are just waiting for us to seal it."

"Right," Raithe said as he looked forward, nearly passing out when he saw all the roofs they would have to jump across. A long ways away they saw sparks of blue and red, indicating that that was wear Rein and Haku were battling the FLY. "Ok," Raithe said as he swung his arms back and forth. He then ran towards the edge of the building and jumped.

"He's gonna make it!" Lenny exclaimed. Raithe slammed into the other wall, his head inches from the top. Lenny and Kero winced. "Or maybe not,"

Raithe grabbed the edge of the building before he fell and pulled himself up, very surprised that his nose wasn't broken.

**15 MORE MINUETS LATER**

Lenny landed on the last roof next to Raithe as they looked at the scene below them. The fly spread its wings out and as it sent a gust of wind towards Rein and Haku, stopping them from moving. "Go get it, baka!" Kero exclaimed as he pushed Raithe.

Raithe fell down to the lower roof a little ways away from the other two who were still struggling against the strong wind. He slowly stood up as he was right outside the range of the wind. He then pulled out the WINDY card.

"WINDY, bind FLY," A huge gust of wind hit him as he went flying back, hitting Rein and Haku. Rein threw Raithe off of her as she stood up. She pulled out an arrow and shot it at the FLY, who just used a gust of wind to knock it off course.

Haku then charged at it with his sword, only to be shot back by a huge gust of wind.

"How can they capture it, it's huge," Lenny commented as he and Kero watched from a safe distance.

"He has the right idea; all he has to do is find a way to distract the FLY." Suddenly another huge gust of wind hit the three and sent them flying back farther this time.

"WINDY, capture FLY with a binding chain, release!" WINDY flew out of the card and straight through the strong gale, completely unaffected by it. It wrapped around FLY. As Raithe was still flying back he pointed the staff at it. "Return to the guise you were meant to be in, SAKURA card!" FLY was vacuumed in the forming card.

Rein grabbed onto the edge of the building as she dangled over. Haku grabbed onto her legs, pulling her down. "Let go of me, we'll both fall, idiot!" She screamed as the wind died away.

"RAITHE!" Lenny screamed. Rein and Haku looked up, then down as Raithe soared over them and into the darkness below. Lenny fell onto his knees as he stared forward. He then banged his fists on the cement roof. "No, this is the second time you died tonight!"

"But he didn't die before," Kero muttered.

"Wow," Haku muttered as he looked down. "Is he really…"

"Of course not," Rein interrupted. Just as she spoke this something flew past them and hovered in the air above them. "See," She said as her eyes were dots.

"Raithe, you're alive!" Lenny exclaimed. Sprouting out of Raithe's back were large white wings. The flapped as he had his arms crossed as he looked at Haku and Rein.

"Fancy meeting you guys _hanging _around here," A sweat dropped appeared on everyone's head.

"Oh Raithe," Lenny muttered. He then jumped off the roof and wrapped his arms around Raithe's waist. "But I can forgive you because you're alive!" He cried.

"Lenny, let go of me you retard! You mean to tell me you can't jump from one roof to another, but you an easily jump from all the way over there to me?!" Lenny looked up at him with watery eyes.

"This is important." Raithe slapped his forehead.

"You may have won this time Imahara," Rein shouted. "But I will have the next card!" Raithe looked at her.

"In your dreams," Lenny shouted down. "So long!" He said as Raithe's wings beated faster as he ascended higher into the air. Kero floated up to them as they flew away. "Hey Raithe," Lenny began as he was still holding on to Raithe's waist, though was slipping down. "Can you hold me?"

Raithe looked at him with a disgusted look. "I mean, what if I fall?" Lenny continued as he slipped more.

"Then you fall, I ain't holding you,"

"What if I pull your pants off?" Raithe's eyes narrowed.

"You know," Lenny said as he was now held sideways in Raithe's arms. "I think this is even more awkward than before," Raithe glared at him.

"You think?!" Next to them Kero laughed as they flew over the city.

_Well, at least now I won't have to run after the SAKURA cards, but now I have to get there extra fast now that Rein and Haku are trying to get the cards._

_**NEXT TIME: **__It's finally golden week, an entire week off from school, but it's not as relaxing as I would've liked, especially not with this Rein Li and Haku out to get SAKURA cards._

Authoress' note: Ok, please review and no harsh flames. Oh yah, there may or may not be some names that you're all not quite sure how to pronounce, so I shall relieve you.

Raithe: Raithe I think is pretty easy, it's like… 'ray- th' …like a ringwraith from 'Lord of the Rings' written by J. R. R. Tolkien

Sara: Ok, now this is not like the English name 's-air-uh' with alternative spelling 'Sarah.' No, it's pronounced 's- are- uh.'

Rein: 'Re (like re-read)- in'

And I think that's all the confusing names. So pleeeeeeeeeeaaaase review, I love reviews, I really do, so if you like my story, please tell me so in a nice review. I feel like updating more when I get lots of reviews. Oh yah, and since I probably wont be updating for a few more weeks-unless I want to update the day after Christmas- I'll say Merry Christmas to you all now. Merry Christmas! And whom ever reviews before Christmas Eve and leaves me their e-mail address, MAYBE I'll send you a Christmas e-card or something, just because I love e-cards and don't get to send them nearly enough.


	10. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

Raithe's fingers slowly danced across the piano as he played a melancholy tune. Despite the sadness of the song, Raithe felt truly happy. Being able to play on Lenny's piano in his art room was truly heaven to him. In the center of the room Lenny painted a picture; a picture he claimed would be far grander than any other he had painted.

Outside was a heavy downpour of rain and as thick gray clouds covered the sky and a ferocious wind blew everything around, including Raithe's black hair which was streaked with green highlights as he played next to the open window.

Lenny peered over the large canvas with narrow eyes and looked at Raithe. "Oy, Raithe- kun," He said loudly.

Raithe's hands pressed down on several keys that did not sound well together at all. He sat there for a moment. "Please don't interrupt me, it messes me up," The cardcaptor said as he turned around to look at his friend, his eyes also narrow.

"Don't interrupt you?" Lenny repeated. "Don't play such depressing songs, especially during golden week," Raithe looked out the four large windows in the room.

"Doesn't seem very golden to me," He muttered. Lenny got up from his stole and walked over to the windows and pressed his hands against the glass and sighed.

"I was so hoping to be able to the sakura blossoms," He said. His head fell as he closed his eyes. "I love sakura blossoms," Raithe turned back to the piano and arched his fingers over the keys.

"Haku's probably going to take Sara-chan to see them," He muttered.

"Hey," Kero said as he floated up from a table covered with all sorts of deserts. "Is this all you guys are going to do?" He asked.

"There's nothing else to do," Lenny replied as he walked back to his painting. Kero folded his arms and closed his eyes, and then they shot open as he pointed his hand and Raithe.

"You should be training!" He exclaimed. Raithe blinked at the yellow creature.

"For what?" He asked?

"For capturing cards! Last time was just embarrassing," Kero said.

"Hey, I caught the card, didn't I?"

"Yes, but you're so weak and un- athletic it's embarrassing," Kero sighed. "Seriously, with that Li girl here, you need to start some serious training."

Raithe brought his hand up and ran his fingers over the thing scratch on the right side of his neck where Rein's arrow scratched him. He then saw her face, she was smirking evilly as her cold green eyes glared at him, and then she began to laugh manically.

"Can we not talk about her," Raithe requested as he shook his head.

"Wimp," Lenny and Kero both muttered as Raithe began to play Chopin's Scherzo No. 2 in B flat minor, Op. 31.

**RAITHE'S POV**

Aw, golden week, the time where we get a whole week off from school and work. But unfortunately it's rather rainy…actually, it's really rainy, and it's been rainy all week. With only three days left of vacation, I've been desperately praying that the rain will let up so we'll be able to do something.

**NORMAL**

Raithe suddenly stopped playing as a shiver shot down his spine. Raithe looked out the window as rain was blown onto his face.

"Why'd you stop?" Lenny asked. "You were just getting to the good part.

"Raithe no baka!" Kero exclaimed as he floated towards Raithe.

"I know," He said as he got up. "I sensed it too, a SAKURA card,"

"Sweet!" Lenny exclaimed. "This will be a perfect time for you to try on the new outfit my mom designed!" Raithe's eyes narrowed as Lenny skipped to the door.

"I have a bad feeling about this,"

XXXXXXXX

"Haaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!" Rein screamed as she punched the wall in front of her, making a large dent in it. She panted as her fist remained at the wall, her eyes shinning with anger as her teeth were gritted. "Idiot!" She yelled as she turned and kicked over exercise equipment.

"C- cousin," Haku began as he held up his hands.

"It's your fault!" She yelled at him. "Because of your idiocy, I lost the FLY! The FLY, do you know how important that card is!!?" Haku began to back away as she viciously glared at him, both her hands clenched into fists. "Get out," She hissed.

"But, this is my,"

"GET OUT!" She picked up a weight and threw it towards the teen. Haku ran to the sliding door and shut it, the heavy weight smashing right through it. Haku peered through the whole, realizing that if he hadn't ducked, the weight would've smashed right into his head and probably killed him.

Rein now had her back turned to the door.

"Crazy girl," Haku muttered as he backed away, and then walked into the kitchen. "Could've frickin' killed me," He continued as he opened the refrigerator.

Rein walked over to the sliding doors that led outside on the other side of the home gym. She opened one and watched the rain pour down for several moments. A shiver then shot down her spine and she narrowed her eyes.

"That b-," Haku began as he put a sandwich to his mouth.

"Haku!" Rein exclaimed as she appeared in the kitchen. "Let's go," She said as she walked passed him. Haku looked at his sandwich and put it down.

"Man," He whined as he ran after her.

XXXXXXXXX

Raithe put his arm over his eyes, shielding them from the pouring rain and wind. "Lenny," He called over the wind that seemed to be pushing him back.

"I hate this out fit!" He exclaimed as he shivered. Lenny had forced him to wear black leather pants with all sorts of buckles and straps and an open leather jacket with about just as many straps, and of course leather boots.

Lenny smiled. "If you like this one, just wait until you see the next one!" He yelled back.

"You could've at least let me have worn a shirt," He muttered. "It's freezing out here,"

"Raithe," Kero cried as his wings fiercely flapped. "We have to find the SAKURA card quickly; I think that's what is causing all this rain."

"Right," Raithe said as he brought out the star necklace. "The key which hides powers of the stars, Sow your true form before me! I, Raithe command you under our contract, Release!" The necklace quickly turned into the staff as Raithe caught it.

"Have any idea what card it is?" Lenny asked as he came next to Kero. Kero folded his arms as he struggled to stay in place.

"My guess would be RAIN," He said. Raithe looked around, and then up at the sky, only to quickly look away as a rain drop fell directly in his eye.

"And how do we find this 'RAIN' card?"

"You don't," A voice suddenly said. "because I will find it before you." They all looked up and saw Rein and Haku standing on a building.

"Great," Raithe muttered. "And I was so hoping you wouldn't come out because the rain would ruin your hair," He said in a mocking tone. Rein glared at him as she clenched her teeth.

She then extended her arm and pointed at him. "It is you who will be ruined after I defeat you!"

"Yah," Raithe muttered as he turned away, completely unfazed by the girls threat. "Let's hurry and find that card, I'm getting cold."

Rein clenched her fists as she then pulled out an arrow and pointed it at Raithe's back as he walked away. "God of fire, answer my call!" A red piece of paper appeared in front of the arrow head as the arrow shot through it. The arrow then began to turn red as it landed behind Raithe.

Raithe stopped walking as he looked at it.

"Ha!" Lenny exclaimed. "You missed!" Rein only smirked. "Ah, Raithe, why is she smirking?"

"I don't-" Suddenly there was a loud explosion as all they could see was fire and smoke. Suddenly incredible pain shot through Raithe's body as he hit the ground, flew up a little, hit the ground again and skidded a few feet across the wet road. Raithe lay there for a moment, coughing, unable to move. He felt like something warm and wet was dripping down his face, and it wasn't rain. He then slightly opened his eyes, seeing only pavement and buildings and smoke and rain. Everything slowly faded to black as his eyes closed.

"Raithe no baka!" Suddenly there was an impact on his head, followed by more incredible pain. "Get up, Rein and Haku have probably already found the card already," Kero said. Raithe slowly opened his eyes. Kero was standing in front of him, but instead of looking angry like Raithe thought he would, he looked worried.

"Kero, what's with that look?" He slightly chuckled. Kero's worried look then turned into anger.

"Raithe no baka!" He said as he turned away. "Now get up, Lenny- kun, you to!" Raithe pushed against the palm of both his hands and slowly sat up. He groaned as he put his hand to his head.

"Feels like a bloody bowling ball," He muttered. He then brought his hand down and looked at it, only to see that it was covered with blood. "Didn't literally mean bloody," He then looked into a puddle and saw his reflection: blood was dripping all down his face. "Crap," He muttered as he tried to stand up. Pain shot down through his leg as he then collapsed back onto the ground.

He looked at his left leg and saw that a whole had ripped in the pants of his knee, which was also covered in blood. Other injuries included a painful scrapes and bruises all over his body and a burn mark on his chest.

He flinched as he forced himself to stand. "By the time I'm done with these cards I'll be in a full body cast," He said as he looked around. Several feet away a crater had formed in the ground where the arrow exploded.

"Raithe- kun!" Lenny exclaimed as he limped over to his friend as fast as he could. He was also covered in scratches and bruises. "Your head…"

"Ah, yah, I don't think it's too bad though," Raithe replied as he touched his hand to his head. "Alright, let's find that card," He said as he walked over to where the staff was a few feet away.

He then pulled out a pink card and held it up. "FLY, give me the ability of flight!" The card glowed as two large white wings shot out of Raithe's back. He flew over and grabbed Lenny under the arms and flew high into the air, closely followed by Kero.

"It seems like the rain's letting up," Kero noticed.

"Hey look," Lenny said as he pointed to a building just in time for them to see a small explosion.

Raithe swooped down and dropped Lenny off on a nearby building. Raithe then landed on the edge of the building that the explosion came from.

Rein was rapidly shooting arrows as a young person with a jester's hat danced flew around her on a cloud as it had a teardrop shaped jewel on its forehead.

Meanwhile Haku slashed his sword through the air as he tried to hit a creature looking very similar the other.

"Ah ha! There are two SAKURA cards," Kero said as he smirked at the scene in front of him. "The RAIN and the CLOUD."

"I see," Raithe replied as he looked back at Rein and Haku.

"You stupid thing!" Rein shouted. "Hold still already!" She then pulled out another arrow. "Emperor of Thunder, answer my call!" A yellow piece of paper appeared in front of the arrow head as it shot through it. The arrow stuck into a wall close to the RAIN and electrical shocks shot out of it, only to be dodged by RAIN.

"Well," Kero said as he flew into Raithe's face.

"Well what?" The teen replied. Kero rolled his.

"Well aren't you going to try to capture the cards!?"

"Ah, right." Raithe ran forward as the white wings disappeared. He then pulled out cards from the black case that was hooked onto his belt. "Let's see…" Suddenly a heavy down pour of rain fell directly around Raithe as everywhere else there was only a slight drizzle. "What the-" Raithe muttered as he covered his eyes. A little ways away RAIN was laughing at him.

Rein chuckled at Raithe's misery, only to obtain the same fate as him: her own personal rain cloud, just for her. "Hey!" She screamed at the card.

"Darn it, I don't think I have anything that can help me," Raithe said to himself as he shoved the wet cards in the pouch.

"Petals of Wind!" He heard Rein shout. A huge gust of wind emitted from the arrow that she had shot. RAIN spun around in the mini tornado, then the wind died down and the mischievous card spun away.

"Rein!" Haku cried. Rein looked over and saw that the area where her cousin was was surrounded by a thick gray cloud. "Stupid clouds, I can't see!" They then heard an 'oomf' sound followed by an 'ow' as Haku ran into a wall.

"Useless buffoon," Rein muttered as she looked back at RAIN.

Raithe jumped and grabbed onto RAIN, only to slip off and fall onto the roof.

"Dragon of Water, answer my call!" Rein shouted as her arrow turned into a huge water dragon. As rain fell onto it the dragon increased in size greatly. The dragon spun around coming close to hitting RAIN, but missed. The great water dragon then disappeared.

"Why can't I beat this stupid card," Rein muttered as she clenched her teeth.

Raithe smirked as he was still lying on the ground. He then stood and pulled out a card. "WATERY, capture RAIND!" WATERY flew out of the card, becoming strong with each passing second. It then spun around RAIN creating a bubble. WATERY then flew back into the card as RAIN was left inside a bubble. Raithe held out the staff.

"Return to the guise that you were meant to be, SAKURA card!" The bubble flew towards the staff as a silver card formed in front of it. The RAIN was sucked into the card, it the solidified as Raithe caught it.

"Well that was easy," Raithe said as he looked at the card. He then looked over to see Rein furiously glaring at him.

She then turned away and pulled out and arrow. "Emperor of Thunder, answer my call!" An explosion of electricity shot through the cloud. The cloud then disappeared as CLOUD fell to the ground next to Haku. She then looked back at Raithe who stared back at her.

"Oh," Raithe said as he suddenly realized that she was waiting for him. "Return to the guise you were meant to be in, SAKURA card!" The CLOUD was vacuumed into the glowing card, then turned pink and flew over to Rein.

The black haired girl caught it, then began to walk towards Haku who was standing up.

"Did you have to electrocute me?" He asked.

"Yes," she replied simply. She then looked back over her shoulder and narrowed her eyes. "I will defeat you," She said. She then jumped into the air and flipped, then disappeared into the darkness. Haku simply looked back, and then followed his cousin.

"Gah," Lenny gasped as he pulled himself over the edge of the building. He then stood up and looked around. "Ah man, I missed the fight." He whined. "Why'd you have to drop me on that building?"

"Because you would've just gotten in the way," Raithe replied. The white wings then sprouted out of his back as he flew into the air.

XXXXXXX

Raithe sighed as he rested his chin on the palm of his hand. Bandages were wrapped all over his body as his mother finished bandaging his left arm.

"Honestly Raithe, what are you doing? Where do all these scratches and bruises come from?"

"I told you, I fell," Raithe replied.

"And the burns?" Raithe couldn't think of any excuse for that. "And why are you always coming home so late?"

"I bet he joined a gang or something," His father muttered as he flipped through the newspaper. "That's what all delinquents do.

"Fujiwara," His wife snapped. "Raithe would never do such a thing…and he's not a delinquent."

His mother finished the bandaging the stood up. "Thanks mom," Raithe said as he went to go up the stairs.

"Don't you want dinner?" She asked.

"No, not very hungry," His mom then looked at her husband.

"Say something to him," She hissed.

"Son, get down here and tell us what the hell you've been doing." He said. Mrs. Imahara sighed. Raithe turned back and looked at them.

"Raithe, we're worried about you,"

"I know," He replied.

"You don't eat much,"

"I know,"

"Your grades seem to be getting worse,"

"I kno-"

"I f you know then why don't you care?" His father interrupted. Raithe racked his brain for an answer.

"Raithe," His mother began again. "Is it…a girl?" Raithe's eyebrows shot up as he father looked at him.

"Yes," He finally said. "Everything, me being out late, the bruises, the scratches, the burns, it's all because of a girl." He then began to walk up the steps.

"Wait a minute," His father said as he stood up. "You mean to tell me you're getting beat up by a girl?" Raithe thought about this for a moment.

"Yes," He replied. His father collapsed back into his chair as he covered his eyes. "I'm getting beat up by a girl with magical arrows that shoot lighting out of them and create wind and water, and they can also explode!" He then threw his arms up into the air.

Both his parents looked at him like he was crazy, then at each other.

"Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go talk to the talking and flying plush toy in my room." Raithe walked up the steps and into his room. Floating above his bed, Kerberos stared at him with folded arms.

"Why did you tell them that?" He exclaimed.

"Don't worry, they don't believe me," Raithe told him as he flopped onto his bed. "No, they just think I'm crazy now."

_**NEXT TIME: **_The rain has finally stopped so Lenny, Kero, and I go to see the sakura blossoms; unfortunately we meet up with some people we definitely did not want to see.

Authoress' note: Hey, sorry it took so long to update, could not think of what to do with this chapter.

Ok please of please review, no harsh flames.


	11. Chapter 10

Chapter 10

Lenny looked at his watch, an impatient look in his bright emerald green eyes. His auburn hair blew in the gentle breeze. Sakura (cherry blossom) petals flew around him as the wind blew them off the trees. Lenny was wearing a light green button up shirt with khaki pants as a black art portfolio hung over his shoulder.

He then looked up and closed his eyes as he took in a deep breath, then slowly let it out as his eyes opened and he gazed out upon Sakura petal covered park.

"Lenny," Raithe called as he walked over to his friend, slightly waving. He was wearing a black t-shirt with a gold argyle pattern on the right side of it while bandages ran all the way down both arms.

"You're late," Lenny told him.

"Sorry, my parents insisted on taking me to a, erm, doctor." The black haired teen replied. Today his messy black hair was highlighted with electric blue streaks, his personal favorite.

"You mean about all your injuries?" Lenny inquired, looking at his friends arms.

"Uh, kinda," Raithe said as the two began to walk deeper into the park. "More like my parents are convinced I'm insane." Lenny stopped walking and looked at him, his eyebrow raised.

"You mean… they took you to a psychiatrist?"

"Yah," Raithe answered as he started walking again. He could tell that Lenny was trying his hardest not to laugh.

"So did your parents get you a nice white coat?"

"What?"

"With sleeves that tie behind the back," Lenny continued. Raithe glared at his friend as Lenny smiled. He then skipped in front of Raithe as he began to sing.

"They're coming to take you away, ha-ha; they're coming to taking you away! To the funny farm where life is gay,"

"You're gay," Raithe interrupted as he walked passed his friend.

The two finally found an area further back in the park where there were less people but still plenty of Cherry blossom trees. Lenny then put down his portfolio and began to empty its contents, which was a large sketch pad, colored pencils, and some erasers and such. He then sat down and leaned against the trunk of one of the trees with the sketch pad on his lap. Raithe sat down next to his friend and put his hands behind his head as he also leaned against the tree trunk. He sighed.

"I should've brought a book," Lenny looked at him.

"You like to read?"

"No, but it's better than just sitting here for a few hours doing nothing," Lenny shrugged. "Remind me why I came again?"

"Because I wanted to come and you didn't want to stay home with your parents."

"Oh yah,"

About thirty minuets passed, Raithe was now ripping apart fallen petals, bored out of his mind. Raithe looked around when something caught his eye. He sat up.

"Raithe-kun, should I use Islamic green, or forest green for the grass?" Lenny asked as he looked over his sketch.

"Sara," Raithe muttered.

"Sara?" Lenny repeated, he then picked up his huge box of colored pencils and looked through them. "I don't think I've ever heard of that color,"

"No," Raithe said coming out of his daze. "Sara-chan,"

Lenny looked at him. "What about her?" He inquired, not trying to hide the antipathy in his voice.

"Raithe looked back over; Lenny rolled his eyes as he could see that Raithe's were clearly dilated.

Sara's hair gently blew in the wind as she was wearing khaki Capri's and a teal short sleeved shirt with gold sandals. She then looked to the right and smiled when Haku appeared, holding a basket.

Raithe slight smile quickly vanished; he then sat back against the tree and folded his arms.

"Aw, look, they're on a picnic." Lenny said, obviously trying to bug Raithe, and it worked. Haku spread out a blanket and the two set down. Lenny continued with his drawing as Raithe fumed with jealousy as he watched the two eat. A sharp pang shot through his heart as he noticed how much she smiled and laughed, and how happy she looked when she was with his most hated enemy.

Even Haku didn't look like such a horrible person as he smiled at the red haired girl. He almost seemed compassionate in fact. Finally the two stood up as everything had been put away.

"What does she see in him anyways, I mean, yah, he's athletic and crap, but still!" Raithe finally said as about an hour had past. Lenny sighed.

"Ok look, I'm not encouraging you to go after her or be hopeful about anything," Lenny began. "But the thing is, 99.9 of the time, high school romances don't last that long," Raithe shrugged. "I mean, what's the worst that can happen?" Lenny continued as he put down his finished drawing of the sakura trees. "It's not as though he's going to propose or something.

Raithe's eyebrow went up as he watched Haku pull something out of his pocket, something that looked like a small black box. Raithe felt like his mouth was going to fall off as it fell, his eyes wide as Haku got down on one knee and held the box to Sara.

Lenny's expression mirrored Raithe's as he watched Sara's shocked expression. He then looked over nervously as Raithe leaned forward.

"Are you kidding me?!" The black haired teen exclaimed as Sara nodded, a huge smile on her face. Lenny slightly winced. Haku then stood up and walked behind Sara as he tied what appeared to be a necklace around the girl's neck. Sara looked at the pendant; she then turned around and hugged the Haku.

Raithe and Lenny sat there, there eyes as big as dinner plates. "It…was a necklace…" Raithe muttered.

"Meaning I doubt he was proposing to her, but more likely asking her to be his girlfriend," Lenny commented. He then nervously laughed. "Well…" He said as Raithe slowly looked at him, a fierce glare on his face.

"What's the worst that can happen?" Raithe repeated, his mouth twitching. "That is!" He exclaimed as he got up and stormed away.

"At least they're not getting married," Lenny called after him.

As Raithe walked, he heard people talking as sakura petals fell all around him.

"What's with all these petals?" One person said.

"It's like they're not even falling off the trees," Raithe stopped as he looked around. What everyone was saying was true, the ground was now completely covered in pink petals as they continued to fall. Within moments, the petals were almost above everyone's ankles.

An intense shiver suddenly shot down Raithe's spine. He looked around. He then saw a young lady in a long flowing pink dress, with corkscrew pigtails and a flower pattern on her forehead hiding amongst the trees. She smiled at him, and then disappeared. Raithe gritted his teeth as he ran after her.

_A SAKURA card, _He thought to himself. He soon found himself in a secluded area. Several feet ahead of him, the lady stood and smiled at him. Raithe pulled out the star necklace and held it in his hand.

"The key which hides powers of the stars, Sow your true form before me! I, Raithe command you under our contract, Release!" The necklace quickly grew into the pink staff as the array appeared beneath his feet. Raithe caught the staff and spun it around as a fierce wind blew around him and the surrounding area was black.

Raithe swiftly brought the staff back as everything turned back to normal, the wind blowing his messy electric blue streaked hair, his deep blue eyes narrow and serious.

The woman blinked as he stood there, she then slightly blushed as she folded her hands in front of her and smiled. Raithe's face became less serious as he was confused by the cards actions.

"Looks like the card has a crush on you, eh Imahara," Haku said as he was standing a few feet away, his arms crossed as he smirked. He then began to walk forward. "To bad she's the only thing that'd ever like you," Raithe gritted his teeth as he glared at the auburn haired teen.

Haku then whipped his bangs out of his as his eyes were closed, he them opened them and looked back at Raithe. "I mean not even Sara-san likes you, not as a lover or as a friend.

Raithe clenched the staff and brought it up as he pulled out a card. "Shut up!" He shouted. WATERY flew out of her card and flew towards Haku as she rode on a pillar of water. She hissed as the water came over and the pillar crashed into the ground, but Haku jumped out of the way and landed by the FLOWER.

The FLOWER looked scared as Haku ran towards her. She turned as she tried to run, but Haku appeared in front of her and kicked her hard in the stomach, sending her back.

"Hey!" Raithe cried, now angry. "That's no way to treat a lady!" He shot his arm forward as WATERY flew past him and again tried to hit Haku, be he dodged. Haku suddenly landed next to Raithe.

"She's not even human!" He yelled back, and then punched Raithe in the face, then kicked him in the stomach. Raithe soared backwards as a clot of blood came out of his mouth. He crossed his arms over his face as he hit the ground and skidded back. Raithe slowly sat up; he then looked up and saw that Haku had his right arm going across the FLOWER's neck.

"I'm afraid that this card belongs to Rein-sama," Haku said as he smirked menacingly. Raithe gritted his teeth as he stood up, picking up the staff.

"Return to the guise you were meant to be in, SAKURA card!" The FLOWER turned into a pink puff of pink smoke and soared into the forming card. It then solidified and flew into the air. Raithe turned away as Haku smirked, but the smirk quickly vanished as the card flew into Raithe hand.

"Wait, what?" Raithe muttered as he looked at the pink card. He then looked up at Haku, whose expression didn't seem as much surprised. "But, you defeated the card," Raithe began. "Shouldn't…" It wasn't as though Raithe was disappointed, but he certainly was confused. In the past, when Rein defeated the card she got it, so why didn't Haku?

"You may be the sacred cardcaptor," Haku began as he turned away.

_Sacred? _Raithe wondered.

"But just remember, I got the girl," He then jumped into one of the nearby trees and disappeared. Raithe looked down at the FLOWER card.

XXXXXXX

"Hm," Kero pondered as he floated above Raithe's bed, his eyes closed as he was deep in thought. "He defeated the card, but it still went to you,"

"Yah, that's what I just got done telling you," Raithe replied.

"I wonder,"

"Wonder what?" Kero then opened his eyes.

"Could it be that Haku- san doesn't have magical power?" Raithe's eyes widened as he stared at Kero.

_Next time: Could it be that Haku seriously doesn't have any magical power? I'll have to see if I can get any information out either Haku or Rein._

Authoress' note: Ok, please review, and no harsh flames. 


	12. Chapter 11

Chapter 11:

Raithe looked up as cherry blossoms fell all around him. He then looked forward to see the white high school ahead of him as students walked in. He shoved his hands in the pockets of his navy plaid pants as he watched a group of girls run up to Sara.

He soon made it inside and went to his locker and took of his shoes. As he went to put on his school shoes he could hear the girl's conversation.

"So you're actually his girlfriend!?" He looked over and saw the group of girls, standing around Sara. Sara nodded as she was slightly blushing; she held the necklace that Haku had given her the day before tightly in her hands.

"Lucky," Another said. "And under the cherry blossoms as well," The girl sighed as she put her hands on her cheeks. "It's so romantic."

Raithe grimly looked away as he put his normal shoes in the small locker. He picked up his school back as the girls walked down the hall. He watched Sara's back until she turned a corner and he could no longer see her. He sighed.

"Oh-ay-o gozai-masu-u!" Lenny exclaimed as he came behind his friend and put his arm around him. Raithe sighed again and simply walked away. Lenny blinked.

"Oi, Raithe- kun," Lenny cried as he ran after Raithe. He then slowed to a walk as he was now beside him. "You seem to be even more emo today-if that's possible- did something happen?" Raithe slowly turned to Lenny.

Lenny jumped back as Raithe's eyes were hollow; the feeling of emptiness was all around him. He then turned and continued to walk to their class. Lenny stared at his back for a moment, and then ran after him again.

Lenny put his hands on Raithe's desk as the black haired teen gazed out the window. Behind him all the girls were still talking to Sara about her date with Haku.

Lenny sighed. "You know Raithe," Lenny whispered. "It's not that I'm trying to encourage you to pursue her or anything,"

Raithe turned his head and glared at Lenny. "Don't say 'pursue,' it sounds wrong."

"What ever, the point is, 99.9 of the time, high school romances don't last for usually much longer than a year. They're bound to break up sooner then later." Lenny then sat down at his own desk as the teacher came in. "Also, I was thinking last night,"

"That's a first," Raithe whispered back. Lenny glared at him.

"I thought out this whole great speech to give you to try to make you feel better and less emo, but you know what, I don't want to give it to you now."

"Good," Raithe hissed. Lenny was about to retort when a tall shadow was cast over them. The two looked up to their homeroom teacher glaring down at them.

Ms. Chihiro was tall and slender with short black hair. "Is there something you'd like to share with the class?"

Lenny and Raithe looked at each other. "Uh," Raithe began.

"Did you get your hair cut Chihiro- sensei?" Lenny suddenly asked. "It looks good," Chihiro- sensei folded her arms as she looked away.

"If I catch you talking again it's detention for each of you." She said as she walked back to the front.

Lenny glanced over at Raithe as he smirked. Raithe rolled his eyes. "Anyways, you know how SHADOW destroyed the piano in the music room?" Lenny hissed. Raithe felt the sudden desire to pull out the card and rip it to shreds.

"Yah,"

"Well, I heard they just got a new one," Raithe glanced over. "I really nice one," Raithe sat up straight in his seat and looked out the window. He wanted class to be over even more.

Finally Chihiro-sensei left the room and students got up to wipe off the chalkboard before the next teacher came.

"Where are you going? Lenny asked as Raithe stood up.

"I want to go see the piano before the next class starts" He replied as he quickly walked to the door.

He walked down the hall as fast as he could with out running. He soon made it to the music room which fortunately was empty. Raithe slid open the door, his eyes immediately falling onto the slick black baby grand piano.

Raithe shut the door behind him and walked to the piano and slid the back of his hand across it. Not a single finger print was on it. He then sat down at the bench and carefully lifted up the lid, careful not to put and finger prints on it.

Raithe then lifted his hands so his fingers hovered above the keys. He went to press them down when the door suddenly slid open.

"What are you doing here, Imahara?"

"Ah, Yu-sensei," Raithe began. The man walked over, a stern look on his face.

"Only students who have permission are aloud to play." He said.

"Oh," Raithe quickly shut the lid and got up. "I'm sorry I didn't know."

"That's alright," He replied as he began to wipe off the lid with a handkerchief.

"Well, I should get back to class," Raithe said as he walked to the door.

"You know," Yu-sensei began. Raithe stopped and looked back. "Normally you're only allowed to play with a teacher's permission," Raithe raised an eyebrow.

"You just said that,"

"But you can play whenever you want if you're in the music club." Raithe stared at the silver haired man.

"I see," He said. "Excuse me," He slightly bowed, then exited the room and ran back to his classroom. He ran over to Lenny's desk and slammed his hands down on it. Startled, Lenny looked up.

"Back so soon?" He asked.

"You did that on purpose," Raithe said as he straightened up, he then walked over to his desk and sat down.

"Did what?"

"You knew that you could only play it if you had a teacher's permission, OR if you join the music club," He said the latter with more emphasis as he narrowed his eyes.

"What, you think I'm trying to get you to,"

"Yes,"

Lenny sighed. "Ok, let's say I am trying to get you to join the music club, why wont you?"

"You know that I have to help with the store after school, not to mention my dad thinks it'll interfere with my school." Lenny leaned over as their English teacher came in.

"Yes, but do YOU want to join," He whispered as everyone stood up. Raithe didn't answer.

Finally it was lunch time. Throughout the whole day Raithe had only thought about two things: the beautiful new piano in the music room, and how much he wanted to play it.

"Mmmm, Spaghetti and meatballs with garlic bread," Lenny said as he put his hands together and looked down at his boxed lunch. Raithe raised an eyebrow as he looked from his friend to the strange lunch. "I'm half Italian, remember?" Raithe shrugged, then got up from his desk and walked toward the door.

"Where are you going?" Lenny called after him.

"I'll be right back, there's something I need to do,"

"You're leaving me to eat my lunch alone?!" Raithe nodded as he smirked. Lenny stared wide –eyed at the closed door. Since the weather was so nice, everyone decided to eat outside. Lenny sighed. "I should join a club or something, that way when Raithe ditches me I have people to eat with."

"How pathetic," A voice said. Lenny turned around and saw Rein sitting behind Raithe's desk.

"What's pathetic?" Lenny inquired. Rein didn't answer for a moment as got her bento ready. She then looked up at him with her gold green eyes.

"Depending on other people for happiness," She answered coldly. "One can only count on one's self for anything, only the weak need other people to fill there lives to give it meaning." She picked up her chopsticks and began eating.

Lenny looked at her for a long while, and then began to eat his own lunch.

XXXXXXXX

**RAITHE'S POV**

"Yes, but do YOU want to join," That one sentence has been playing through my mind since he said it, and I've finally decided that he's right. Most of the time I just do what everyone tells me to do, never really going after what I want. Mostly it's my dad and Lenny who are the ones who tell me not to go for what I really want. I know that sounds really rebellious or something, but I don't mean it like that.

For example, my whole life I've wanted to seriously play piano, you know, piano lessons and recitals and such. In fact I've always felt that if I could be good enough, that's the career I'd want, to travel around the world and play the piano in huge stadium and get paid for it. But my dad thinks that you can never make a living off of that, in order to get money you need to do real work in a real job (yah, and we see how well 'real work' in working for us).

Another example would be Sara. I've always had a crush on her, I've always loved her, but Lenny always told me that if I told her I liked her, and she didn't like me back, our friendship would be ruined forever, and we were really good friends, so I never told her how I felt. But now I wonder what could've happened if I just ignored Lenny and that stupid little voice in the back of my head and just told her.

But I'm not going to do that anymore, I'm going for what I want, maybe I can't have Sara yet, but there are some other things in my reach.

**NORMAL**

"Yu- sensei, Raithe called. The silver man stopped and looked at his student as he ran towards him. "Yu- sensei," Raithe repeated as he put his hands on his knees, trying to catch his breath.

"Is something wrong Imahara," He asked. Raithe shook his head no, then stood up straight and looked the man in the eyes.

"I… I want to join the music club," He said. Yu-sensei stared at him for a moment, and then smiled.

"I see," He replied. "What made you change your mind?" Raithe looked out the open window they were standing next to as a soft breeze blew his hair.

"I guess…I've just finally decided to go for what I want," He looked back at his teacher as he blue eyes slightly shimmered.

"Alright then, come to the music room after your classes, I'm sure the whole club will be happy to have a new member." As Yu- sensei walked away, a question occurred to Raithe.

"Ah, Yu-sensei," The man turned around. "I just thought of something: You're the math teacher, so why are you the music club teacher?" Yu-sensei smiled.

"That's simple. As you may have heard or not heard, the music teacher, Ms. Kitaka, just got married this past year, now she has her own house to tend to and a dinner to make for her husband, so she didn't feel that she'd have enough time if she stayed for the club every day. So since I always loved music, I offered to teach." Raithe blinked. "See you after class," And with that he walked away.

XXXXXXX

Raithe opened the classroom door shortly before lunch was over.

"Well you know what, you can just go straight to hell, you damned !"

"Lenny?" Raithe muttered as he stood in the door way. Lenny looked up at him as Rein just kept eating her food, completely unfazed by what Lenny had just said. Suddenly Lenny was standing in front of his friend, hands on hips, eyes glowering.

"Where have you been? Never EVER leave me alone with this, this," He turned around as he had his hand outstretched towards Rein. "This…mean person again!" He finished.

"At least I'm not stupid," Rein replied as she put down her chop sticks. Anger marks appeared all over Lenny's head as his eyes became small dots.

He turned around and pointed at the girl. "You…!" Suddenly the door slid open as the rest of the class poured in. Lenny stood there for a moments as everyone walked past him, some giving him weird looks, most just ignoring him.

"Come on," Raithe said as he put his hand on his friends shoulder as the teacher came in.

"By the way, where were you?" Lenny hissed once they were in their seats. "You missed all of lunch." As Raithe stared out the window, his chin resting on the palm of his hand, his stomach let out a low grumble, just as the class had become silent. Raithe blushed as everyone looked at him, most of the girls snickered.

Finally all the classes were over. Raithe quickly got up and ran out into the hall.

"Raithe-kun," Lenny called as he ran after his dark haired friend. "Where are you going?"

"I joined the music club," Raithe replied simply. Lenny blinked.

"Cool, I'm gonna go join the art club," He replied, then walked away. Raithe soon got to the music room to find that the door was open. He looked in and saw a girl with long silver hair putting papers in a neat pile by the desk. Raithe blinked as he stared at her.

She was about average height and was very thing and pale. Her green plaid, pleated skirt stopped right above her knees as the navy blazer was neatly buttoned across her front. She had light brown eyes that were filled with a kind, and gentle look.

_This girl, _Raithe thought to himself. _I've seen her before…_

_FLASHBACK_

_Suddenly something ran into him. "What the,"_

"_Raithe you jerk, you just walked into that poor girl," Lenny said. Raithe looked down and saw a girl about a head shorter than him. She had long silver hair and was rubbing her head._

"_Er, sorry, I didn't," The girl looked up at him with big light brown eyes. She quickly bowed, muttered something, and ran away. Raithe blinked. (Flashback from chapter 8)_

END FLASHBACK

The girl picked up the papers and went to walk off the small platform that the desk was on.

"Ah, hey," Raithe began. The girl looked over. Suddenly her eyes became wide and she fell off the platform and onto the floor as the papers flew into the air and fell all around creating a huge mess.

Raithe quickly ran around the piano, onto the platform, and around the desk. He looked down to the see the girl sitting on her legs as she had her hands in her lap, her face covered by her hair.

"Are you ok?" He asked. She jerkily looked at him, her face bright red, then she looked away she tried to stand up, but she slipped on a piece of paper. Raithe quickly stretched out his arms and wrapped them around her to stop her from falling. "Sorry, I didn't mean to startle you," He said as he slightly smiled.

The girl's face turned a darker shade of red as she looked down at his hands. Raithe's smile slowly disappeared as he also looked at saw where he was touching her.

The girl screamed as Raithe quickly let go of her and fell backwards, his face also red. "I- I'm so sorry!" He exclaimed. The girl was standing close to the desks as she held her arms above her chest. "I'm not a pervert, really!" He continued as he stood up. The girl continued to look away from him. "But I'll understand if you hate me," He said as he began to pick up the papers, glancing back at her.

"I," She suddenly said. Raithe stood up straight and looked at her. Her voice was soft and shy sounding. "I could n- never hate," She turned away even more as Raithe blinked, bamboozled by her strange behavior. "I- I know, you're not a p-pervert," She then glanced back at him as she tried to smile, her face still very red. "You…were trying to help me after all," Raithe smiled. He then rubbed the back of his head.

"Yah, I really am sorry," The girl softly smiled as her eyes slightly sparkled. "So," Raithe began as they both knelt down and began to gather up the papers. "I'm Ima-"

"Imahara Raithe-san," She said as she blushed and looked away. Raithe blinked.

"Yah…" He stared at her for a minuet. "I feel bad, since you know who I am, but…who are you?" She looked up at him, a slightly surprised look on her face. "I mean, I only remember seeing you once a few weeks ago, sorry if I seem rude,"

"Oh no," She said quickly, she began to gather the papers faster as she turned away from him. "Its fine, I've only just transferred a few weeks ago," She explained. "She then glanced at him. "Our first meeting was when I took the exams,"

"Oh, I see," Raithe replied. "What class are you in?" She suddenly dropped the papers she had gathered and brushed a lock of her hair behind her ear as her face became red again.

"I- I'm…" She slightly glanced at him. "I'm in….your class…" Raithe could feel all the blood drain from his head. His mouth slightly opened as he tried to think of something to say. The girl, smiled sincerely at him, which he felt was more than he deserved, and gathered up the papers again. She then stood up and placed them on the desk. Raithe quickly gathered the rest of them and stood up as well.

"Ah, then you must sit near the back,"

"Actually I sit next to Hisashi-san," She replied. Raithe wanted to kill himself.

_I'm a jerk, a truly horrible person. She's been sitting next to Sara-chan for almost two weeks and I never even once noticed her?!_

The girl worriedly looked at him when she saw him staring blankly at her. "Ah, but don't worry,"

"I should die," Raithe muttered.

"Heh?!" The girl exclaimed as her eyes became wide. "N- No, don't say that, it's no big deal, really," She tried to comfort him. Raithe scratched the back of his neck, and then looked at her.

"I'm…really sorry," He began. The girls face began to turn red again as he looked at her, his blue eyes staring into her brown ones. "Not that I deserve to know, but what's your name?" The stared at him, then suddenly realized he had asked her a question.

"Ah, Yu, Miwa," She replied with a bow. Raithe blinked.

"Yu?"

"Miwa-chan," A voice suddenly said. In the door way was a tall boy with neatly combed brown hair. "I've was talking to Yu- sensei and," He stopped when he saw Raithe. "Is he a friend of your's, Miwa-chan?"

"Shoujiro-senpai," Miwa said as she slightly bowed to him, she then looked at Raithe, her cheeks pink. "Ah, well, I…wouldn't count myself lucky enough to be called Imahara-san's friend," Raithe blinked as she mumbled the last part of her sentence, her cheeks becoming more and more red. The two boys stared at her. "This is Imahara, Raithe-san, he's in my class," She explained.

"I see," The boy replied. "And why is he here?" Miwa looked at him again.

"Well, I, see,"

"Alright," Yu-sensei said as he came into the room and closed the door. "Ah, Imahara-kun, glad to see you came," He said with a warm smile. He then looked at Miwa, then at the other boy. "Good since everyone is here,"

"Wait, this is everyone?" Raithe exclaimed. Yu-sensei nodded.

"Everyone, this is Imahara, Raithe: From now on, he is part of our musical family."

"Eh?" Miwa muttered as she was surprised. Everyone looked at her.

"This is alright, isn't it Miwa-chan?" Yu-sensei asked.

"Ah, of course, it's just, well, I didn't think Imahara-san," Miwa looked down at the floor and pushed her two pointed fingers together as her face steadily turned a deep red. "I- I'm very happy that's he's decided to join," She glanced at Raithe, then to the side, to the floor, to Raithe, and the cycle continued. "I've heard you're very good at playing the piano,"

"Right, well, Imahara-kun, this is Kitaki, Shoujiro-san," Yu-sensei explained as he indicated to the brown haired boy. "And this," He then looked at Miwa. "Is my life, my whole world, and my beloved daughter, Miwa," Miwa slightly bowed as Raithe blinked.

"E-Eh?!" He exclaimed. He looked at Miwa; at her long silver her and her soft light brown eyes, then at Yu-sensei, who also had thin, long silver hair and light brown eyes, only his eyes were slightly more intense.

"I tell this to everyone who meets her: If you do anything to harm or embarrass her," He began as he smiled. "I know where you live," Raithe gulped as he recalled what had happened only moments prior. He glanced at Miwa who was looking at the floor, her right arm covering her chest as she blushed.

"Understood, sensei," Raithe replied.

"Good," He replied. "Now, take your seats and we shall begin. Raithe sat down in between Miwa and Shoujiro. He looked at Shoujiro; his eyes were brown and narrow as he had a very serious air around him. He then looked at Miwa, who seemed to be completely opposite. She had large, soft light brown eyes and a shy, kind, and somewhat mysterious air about her.

_What is this strange feeling that I feel around her?_ He wondered as he looked back at Yu- sensei.

_NEXT TIME: Well, I've done it: I've joined the music club, although I'm a bit surprised that there's only two other people besides me. Anyways, for some weird reason unknown to me, our world becomes totally whacked in just a few seconds. I just hope I can somehow fix this._

Authoress' note: Yay, I finally updated. Sorry it took a while, for about a week my computer was out of commission, but that's the only good excuse I have. Sorry there was no card in this chapter, or Kero, or much of Rein and Haku, I know in the last chapter I kinda left an unanswered question for you all to ponder. Ok, so please review and no harsh flames.


	13. Chapter 12

Authoress' Note: Ok, sorry I haven't updated in a while, but I've been really stuck, which is why what I said in the last chapter what was gonna happen ain't gonna happen anymore 'cause I was totally stuck

Authoress' Note: Ok, sorry I haven't updated in a while, but I've been really stuck, which is why what I said in the last chapter what was gonna happen ain't gonna happen anymore 'cause I was totally stuck.

Chapter 12:

"Haha, I'll kill you," Lenny cried as he glanced over at Raithe.

"Not if I kill you first," Raithe calmly replied.

And explosion was heard as the wall TV read 'GAME OVER' on Lenny's side of the screen and 'WINNER' on Raithe side.

Lenny sighed as he dropped the game controller.

"Let's see, I believe that's 43 to 2 total, and 15 to 1 today." Raithe commented as he leaned back on the couch and put his hands behind his head.

"Yah, yah," Lenny muttered as he picked up the controller. "Best 8 out of 17?" Raithe blinked.

"Don't you want to do anything else; it's your birthday party after all," Lenny looked down at the floor.

"No it's not," He replied softly. He then looked at his friend, his eyes shinning. "I spent my birthday party with you and onee-chan." He then looked down again. "This is just something so that my parents can say that they were there for my sixteenth birthday."

RAITHE'S POV

Today is May 23, and although Lenny's birthday in on the 7th, we're celebrating his birthday again today, though more for his parents that anyone else. On his actually birthday he had me over and we hung out with his older sister, Rosa, all night.

Lenny's parents travel a lot-due to being famous fashion designers and so make millions every year- and aren't home most of the time, including his birthday, but they're coming home tonight for a short visit, so once again I've been invited over despite Mr. and Mrs. Suzuki's disapproval (something about them 'wanting to spend time with their precious son, but I know it's because my family is to poor to be considered important to them.)

NORMAL

"So, when are your parents going to get here?" Raithe asked. Lenny was about to reply when the elevator door opened and Rosa walked out. "Yo, Raithe-kun," She said as she saluted him with her index and pointer fingers and winked.

Raithe tightly closed his mouth as he glanced away. He could feel is face turning red.

RAITHE'S POV

At Lenny's first party was the first time I really spent time with Rosa, I had to say she was much different that what I thought she'd be like. I always envisioned her to be the responsible older sister type of woman…but, she's not. In fact, I think she may be worse then Lenny. Lenny paints pictures of actually things, while Rosa is more into the abstract and postmodern art where you throw paint at a white canvas and say its art. I also found out she's a bit (a lot) of a pyromaniac, yah, note to self: if Rosa ever pulls out a lighter and/or flammable liquid or some other item that easily burns, run. Run far away as fast as you can and don't look back.

NORMAL

Her usual happy and spunky look then suddenly disappeared, and for the first time that Raithe had ever seen, she looked serious.

"What's up, onee-chan?" Lenny asked, getting worried.

"Mom and Dad just arrived." She stated. "Dinner is almost ready and they're waiting in the dinning room."

XXXXXXXXX

Raithe and Lenny followed Rosa down the long hall and to the grand staircase in the foyer.

RAITHE POV

For some reason this is the first time that I've ever really realized how little I see Lenny's family, and how little I really think about his parents. I've met his parents face to face once, and seen them around maybe two other times, but basically they're not around. Both of them are very serious, at least in appearance, but Lenny tells me that his dad can be a bit friendlier and less prejudice than his mother.

His mom, Lucrezia Mancini Suzuki was born and raised in Italy. Apparently she started selling her designs when she was ten and by the time she was fifteen she had already made her family pretty rich. When she was sixteen she met Akio Suzuki and they went back to Japan together and married.

Mr. Suzuki was the son of a CEO of some technology company he inherited the company when he was eighteen after his dad died, so he's also been rich his whole life.

NORMAL

Raithe and Lenny followed Rosa into the dining room where they found his mother sitting on the end closest to them, and his father all the way at the other end of the long table. Raithe stepped next to friend and saw that he was smiling.

"Hey mom," he said rather awkwardly, and then looked at his father. "Dad," His father simply nodded. His mother looked at him, her eyes cold and judging as she looked over Raithe.

"Lorenzo," She began. Raithe and Rosa both snickered, only to be glared at by Lenny.

RAITHE'S POV

It isn't as though 'Lorenzo' is a particularly funny name- although when everyone found out that was Lenny's real name in kindergarten, everyone laughed- it's more how his mom says it. She says 'Loren-' normally, then emphasizes '-zo' so it sounds funny.

NORMAL

"It's nice to see you again, dear." She continued. Raithe glanced over just in time to see the slightest twitch on his friends face. "Please sit down so we may begin eating."

"A-ah, yah," A man in a white chef's coat directed Raithe and Lenny to the middle on the one side of the table, while Rosa sat across from them.

'_It's nice to see you again?' _Raithe sat as he looked at Lenny's mom, then back at his friend. _What the hell kind of greeting is that to your son. They didn't even say anything Rosa._ He then looked across at the light brown haired woman as the servants filled up all their plates with noodles and chicken parmesan with salad and bread sticks.

Little to no talking occurred during the meal. Both Mr. and Mrs. Suzuki asked how school was for each of the three students, though they didn't sound very concerned and/or interested.

"So, Lorenzo," Mr. Suzuki began. Lenny flinched. "Your sister told us you had a bunch of friends over on your actual birthday, how was that?" Lenny looked across at his sister who looked at her dad.

"I said he a party, not a bunch of friends over." She replied.

"Same thing," Mrs. Suzuki said.

"No, it's not," Rosa retorted.

"Er, what on onee-chan means is, it was only Rosa, Raithe, me." Both parents looked at him.

"What about all of your other friends." An awkward silence filled the room as both Rosa and Raithe looked from Mr. Suzuki, to Lenny, to Mrs. Suzuki.

"I…don't have any other friends,"

"What about that nice red-head girl," His father inquired.

"Yes, her. She wasn't particularly pretty, but she came from a good family." Mrs. Suzuki said, casting Raithe a look, who glared back at her.

RAITHE POV

Ok, maybe Sara-chan wasn't this gorgeous super model like Rosa, but she was certainly pretty…I guess.

NORMAL

"Um, Lenny began. "She kinda changed, we don't hang out anymore. "But I do actually have some new friends now."

"Really," His mother inquired, looking excited for the first time Raithe had ever seen.

"Yah, they're all in the art club…which I joined." She fell back into her chair as her expression went back to normal. She began to eat again as though the conversation had never existed.

RAITHE'S POV

Like my parents, Lenny's aren't to thrilled about him and Rosa being artists, which is kinda weird since fashion design can basically be called an art form. Also like my parents, or my dad at least, their parents also want them to continue with their careers, Rosa a fashion designer/model, and Lenny to be the heir to his dad's company.

NORMAL

Suddenly Rosa but down her fork and scooted her chair back. "If you'll excuse me," She began. "I have a date tonight, I need to get ready." She was almost to the door when her mother grabbed her wrist.

"And just what do you think you are doing?"

"I told you, I'm-"

"You can't just leave on your little brothers birthday," Rosa yanked her arm away.

"You're wrong, _mother,_" She said in an almost mocking way. "I was here for Lenny's birthday, as was Raithe-kun. It was you and father who were absent." She then glanced at her father who had a somewhat apologetic look on his face. "But I suppose I should still ask birthday boy,"

"Ah, it's fine," Lenny said. "Just come home before tomorrow morning," He said, though Raithe wasn't sure whether he was joking or not. She smiled at him.

"Fine, fine," She replied as she waved her hand at him.

After what seemed like hours, dinner finally ended. Lenny quickly left the room as Raithe followed.

"Ah, Lenny-kun," Raithe called as he ran up to where the landing was at the top of the staircase where Lenny waited. "We're going back to your room?"

"Well, what else are we supposed to do?"

"Uh…well, I thought you may want to,"

"What?" Lenny interrupted; his bright green narrowing. "Spend 'quality time' with my parents? I can't have normal conversations with my parents, or were you not listening during dinner." He then turned and walked up the right staircase to the east wing.

XXXXXXXX

"Sure you're comfy enough?" Lenny asked as he pulled back his bed sheets. Against the wall was a couch that could be pulled out a little so it was almost the width of a normal bed. This was where Raithe slept every time he stayed over.

"Lenny, you ask me every time I come over, and I give you the same answer." He replied as he put his hands behind his head and fell back as his head hit the pillow. Lenny smiled, then jumped onto his own bed, pulled the covers up, and clapped twice, turning the lights out.

After about fifteen minuets, Lenny whispered: "Raithe-kun, are you awake?"

Raithe looked over. "Yes," He whispered back.

"Oh…."

"What?"

"Ah, no, it's just…" There was a long pause. "Raithe," Lenny began in serious tone. "I…I get really lonely…when I'm at home." Raithe propped himself up on his elbows. "I have onee-chan, but she isn't here all that often, so...yah, I basically just wanted to say thanks for being a friend and…yah," Raithe smirked as he heard Lenny roll over.

"That was probably about the cheesiest thing I've ever heard," He replied as he flopped back down.

"Shut up," Lenny retorted.

"But you know," Raithe began. "I could say the same thing to you." There was another long pause.

"Ok, that was gay, g'night," Lenny said quickly.

"Yah," Raithe agreed as he rolled over and drifted to sleep.

XXXXXXX

Raithe's eyes snapped open as he was suddenly awakened by the sound of a blood curdling scream. He clutched his stomach as a weird feeling fell over him. _Could it be… and SAKURA card?_

"Onee-chan!"

Raithe looked over just as Lenny ran out of the room. Raithe then grabbed the star necklace off the table and ran into the elevator just in time before it left.

"You think it's a SAKURA card?" Lenny asked, obviously worried.

"Might be, but whether that's a good thing or not, I don't know," _Some of these cards are really quite violent. Rosa, please be ok. _The elevator door opened and the two immediately ran out. They ran down the hall and into the west wing, where Raithe had never been. At the end of the hallway was another elevator. Lenny pushed the up button and in about two seconds it arrived.

Finally the door opened. There was an era much like Lenny's, with the door to the stairs wide open.

"Onee-chan," Lenny called. They then heard another scream and a door burst open and something red suddenly bounced out of the room, past the boys, and down the stairs. The boys stared for a moment, blinking.

"Was that a…" Raithe began. He gulped. "bra…?"

"Um," Lenny began. "Yah,"

Awkward silence.

"Do they normally," Lenny began.

"No," Raithe replied. They then slowly walked over to the door and peered in. Rosa slowly looked down into her drawer and shifted things around with a broom handle. They then looked back at the stairwell.

"I guess we should chase it…or something." Lenny said. Raithe looked at him, feeling very awkward.

"Hell no," He exclaimed. "I'm not chasing your sisters," His mouth hung open for a moment as no words came. "Yah,"

"But, obviously that's a SAKURA card,"

Raithe crossed his arms. "No way, you go catch it, then bring it back to me."

"Ew, no way, I'm not touching it."

"Well I'm not going."

XXXXXX

"I can't believe I'm walking through your house in the middle of the night looking for your sister's bra." Raithe muttered as he held the star staff out in front of him.

"And I can't believe I'm helping. Are we close yet?"

"I think so," Raithe replied. They were not outside in the garden. "I wish there was a light though," Suddenly they heard a rustling noise from a bush. Raithe quickly pulled out a card as he felt an incredible magic aura from the bush. WINDY then flew out of the card and into the bush. Then out jumped some weird pink demonic looking rabbit thing as WINDY chased after it.

Raithe and Lenny looked back and forth as the pink rabbit thing jumped across the yard and WINDY chased. Finally WINDY wrapped around the rabbit, thus stopping it. Raithe held out the staff.

"Return to the guise you were meant to be it, SAKURA card!" The rabbit turned into a pink puff of smoke and was vacuumed into the glowing card. The card then solidified and turned pink as it fell into Raithe hand.

"The JUMP," Lenny read. Raithe yawned.

"Well that was a pain," He muttered as the staff disappeared.

"Um, Raithe-kun," Lenny began. Raithe looked back. "What do we do about that?" He pointed to the object that the JUMP had taken over.

"Well, you shouldn't leave it out here." Lenny cringed as he picked it up by the strap. He then smirked.

"Raithe-kun," Raithe looked back again. "Catch," Raithe was so tired that he didn't even realized that it had landed right in his hands until a few seconds later.

"Ew! Don't go around throwing it, especially to me!"

Suddenly the back door opened and Mr. and Mrs. Suzuki were standing there. "And just what are you guys," She stopped as she stared at Raithe and what he was holding. The two boys also looked at his hand, and then Raithe quickly dropped it.

"T-this isn't what it looks like, I swear."

"Then what is it?" Mr. Suzuki inquired. Raithe and Lenny exchanged glances.

"See," Lenny began. "This magical being manifested itself in it, and Raithe is this thing called a card captor, and he has this pink magical staff and it's his job to catch these magical beings and lock them in cards so that he can use them later." Raithe glanced at Lenny, and then at Mr. and Mrs. Suzuki he stared blankly at the two.

XXXXXXXX

The front door slammed shut as Raithe stood outside with all his things on the ground. He stared at the closed door for a moment, and then picked up his backpack which had all his clothes and began to walk down the driveway.

XXXXXXXXX

"Nooooooooooooooooooo!! Raaaaaaaaaaaaaaiiitheee-kuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuun!!" Lenny cried as two servents dragged him up the steps as he parents walked next to him.

"It'll be ok, Lorenzo," His mom said. "I don't want you to see that perverted boy again, do you hear me. We'll take you to a doctor tomorrow, so you just rest."

"But I'm not crazy!" He protested as he was dragged up the steps. "I'm not crazyyyyyyyyyyyy!!"

"That's what all the crazy people say," His dad commented as his wife sobbed on his shoulder.

Authoress' note: Ok, no idea what I'll do next, probably what I was gonna do for this chapter if I can think of anything. Ok, I know the capture scene was really short and stuff, but it's late, I'm tired and I have a really bad head ache, so yah. Please review, no harsh flames, and I'll try to see if I can get a chapter up on Friday if I have time and enough inspiration.


End file.
